


a new wish

by jilliancares



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Accidental Outing, Alternate Universe - High School, Bucket List, Coming Out, Eventual Smut, First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M, Trans Character, Trans Keith (Voltron), broganes, but just to one person, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-05-03 09:18:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 53,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14565882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jilliancares/pseuds/jilliancares
Summary: It's been three years since Keith last went to public school. Now, he's going to Jefferson High as a senior, nervous to make friends and even more nervous about anyone realizing he's trans, considering how small the school is and how quickly news is likely to spread. Ultimately, Keith relies on his wishlist, doing his best to accomplish the little things in order to get by.





	1. go back to school

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys!!! inspired by my dearest friend @haleykynz on tumblr, i present to you my newest chaptered fic!! not quite sure what the updating schedule will look like rn, but it'll probably end up being at least once a week as i tend to get stressed out when i wait longer than that to update ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> i'll be adding more tags as things happen, also the rating'll go up eventually
> 
> i'm not trans myself, so if anything in particular ever seems off-base or just plain wrong, definitely lmk!!! i do my best to do research and make sure i'm presenting all information and emotions accurately, but there's nothing quite like first-hand experience
> 
> anyway, i really hope you enjoy!! please lmk what you're thinking in the comments <3

Keith had a wishlist.

It wasn’t necessarily the most epic of wishlists, wasn’t filled to the brim with wants for material items like clothes or video games. It was just simple things he wanted, things he hoped to happen to him in his lifetime, having been started back when he was seven.

Yes, the soft, wrinkled, folded, faded and ripped piece of paper in his pocket was _eleven years old_. He could remember sitting in the living room of one of the first foster families he could actually recall, the midday’s summer sun falling through the blinds in slants. The TV had been playing quietly, his foster mom at the time having set it up for him before going to the kitchen to make snacks. Keith had been sitting on the floor, his knees digging into the plush carpet while his hands played over the polished brown wood of the coffee table in front of him, covered with printer paper and a spilled carton of crayons.

He can still remember his reason for starting it. He’d come to really love the foster parents he’d been with, a couple who’d stuck with him for longer than most did, and a fierce kind of longing had filled him to the brim.

Sitting in front of that table and full of determination, Keith had grabbed a red crayon and written _WISHLIST_  across the top of the page in sloppy, kid-printed letters. Under it, he’d written a single item: _get adopted_.

At that point in Keith’s life, it’d been the only thing he’d ever wanted. To have a home he’d known he would keep, parents he’d be able to call his own. Which, of course, was why he’d been heartbroken when he’d eventually been moved to another family, just like always. He’d taken his wishlist with him, had folded it up and shoved it into his pocket for the first time, not knowing he’d keep it and add to it as time passed.

Now, his list had grown and expanded, covering both sides. Some items were written in minuscule print, different bullet points shoved in sections of available space, others written sideways up and down the page. All over there were things crossed out, items he’d managed to accomplish by now.

He’d crossed out that very first bullet, _get adopted_ , nearly four years ago now. And subsequently, he’d been able to cross off many, many more. _Have someone use male pronouns for me. Cut my hair short. Get a binder. Go on T._

His life had changed for the better, so many great things happening all at once it’d felt too good to be true. Keith had been so convinced there’d been a mistake, that any moment he’d wake up, and yet no amount of pinching had changed anything at all.

Now, though, Keith felt cold and clammy with nervous sweat. It felt like his good luck was finally running out. Three years of having the perfect family, of being schooled from home and finally becoming comfortable in his own body, was too much for one person to be allotted. Now, his adoptive moms had insisted on sending Keith back to public school, claiming it would make for a better senior year than the one online schooling could give him.

They insisted this would be good for him, a perfect way to “get back into it” before going off to college, but Keith couldn’t help but disagree. He was pretty sure going to high school for the very last year, especially after having not even gone to a public school for the three years previous, was a horrible idea. A guaranteed recipe for disaster.

Still, Keith had a plan for his senior year. All he had to do was lie low and keep from drawing any unnecessary attention to himself. He decided that it didn’t matter if he didn’t make friends, if he didn’t have anyone to sit with at lunch, despite the pathetically hopeful additions he’d made to his list just days before. All he needed was to get good enough grades to get the hell out of there, and then he’d be set, wishlist be damned.

Honestly, finding himself back in a public school after three years felt like being thrown to the wolves. He could scarcely believe he was up this early, much less wearing pants and a binder. For the past three years he’d risen at noon, eaten Cheerios while doing his online schooling, and spent the rest of the day playing video games or surfing the internet in his underwear. Then again… maybe it was understandable his moms were sending him back to public school after all.

And so here Keith was. Standing on the steps of Jefferson High, the sky still barely lightening behind him, the fluorescent lights inside the building looking about ready to give him a headache.

“Ten bucks says Mr. Iverson finally goes around the twist this year,” said a chipper voice from somewhere behind Keith, much too energetic for eight in the morning.

“No way. If you haven’t driven him to quitting in the past three years, there’s nothing you can do now.”

“You wouldn’t believe the plans I have for this year, Hunk. _Senior year_.”

“Sometimes I wonder if we should just leave that idiot alone,” sighed a third voice.

“It’s attitudes like that that’ve kept us from driving him over the edge in our previous years, Pidge,” chided the first, chipper voice. “It’s our sacred duty to eradicate this _evil_  from our school.”

Unable to help himself any longer, Keith glanced over his shoulder, his eyes locking on the three other students stupid enough to show up to school an entire half hour early. One kid was really short, her hair choppy around her face and her glasses dwarfing her eyes. In the middle was a vaguely familiar looking boy, tall and skinny with his hands latched around the straps of his backpack. On the other side of him was a dark-skinned boy with a kind face, an orange bandana tied around his forehead.

As Keith stared, the boy in the middle looked up and made eye-contact with him, instantly smirking. “Out of the way, freshman!”

“Lance!” The guy on the right of Lance — Hunk — elbowed him, making him stumble.

“I’m not a freshman,” Keith found himself saying. The Lance kid cocked his head.

“Never seen you before,” he said, holding up one finger. “Short,” he added, putting up another. And then he shrugged, clearly out of freshman-classifying-proof.

“ _I’m_  short,” Pidge scoffed.

“I’m not a freshman,” Keith insisted. “I’m just new.”

“Oh wow!” Hunk said. “We, like, never have new students here. I’m Hunk.”

“Keith,” Keith supplied. His eyes were drawn, again, to Lance, who was kind of squinting at him, his lips pursed.

“This is Lance,” Hunk said, with a roll of his eyes. “Please excuse his generally rude demeanor.”

“And I’m Pidge,” Pidge added.

“Do I know you?” Lance asked, pointed a finger at Keith. Just like that, the vague feeling of recognition Keith had been feeling clicked into place. This was Lance _McClain_. They’d gone to the same middle school back before he’d been pulled out of the system, allowed to do online schooling by his then foster parents, the same ones that had adopted him.

“No,” Keith said quickly, fighting down what felt like electricity in his legs, trying to convince him to bolt. He’d gone to this high school specifically because it was the one that his old middle school, across town, hadn’t been zoned into. So what was Lance McClain doing _here_?

“You’re not internet famous, are you?” Lance pestered, leaning in closer.

“No.”

“Hmm.”

“Stop bugging him, Lance,” Pidge said. Then she nodded at Keith. “Welcome to Jefferson, by the way. Don’t let Lance scare you away.”

“Will do,” Keith managed, and then the trio was walking past him, Keith’s thundering heart calming down as they did. They fell easily back into their conversation as they walked, the new student quickly forgotten from their minds.

“So anyway, I’m thinking that I’m gonna fill Mr. Iverson’s car with…”

It was a much closer call than Keith would’ve liked. Keeping his head down and breezing through his one and only year of high school wouldn’t be so easy if he was outed on his first day here. If Lance recognized him from middle school, from before he’d cut off all his hair and bought binders and gone on T….

Well, his life could be ruined, couldn’t it?

Maybe that was a bit dramatic, but his year could definitely be ruined. It depended on the type of person Lance was, after all. The easiest way to avoid discovery would be to just avoid Lance, obviously. Still, from what Keith remembered of him from their middle school days, he wasn’t the brightest of people, so maybe Keith was panicking for no reason in the first place. Lance probably couldn’t put two and two together anyway.

Pushing away the bout of anxiety he’d just been assaulted with, Keith followed the three students to where they’d disappeared up the main steps, pulling open the heavy main entrance doors and flipping open his schedule to see where he was going. His first class was English — bound to be dreadful — but he figured he’d just go ahead and figure out where it was now. Sherry, one of his foster moms, had dropped him off early for that explicit purpose, seeing as he’d never had to navigate a school building this large before. Also because it was the only time she _could_  drop him off, seeing as she’d had to go straight to work after doing so.

It was a good thing, though, because the school honestly _was_  gigantic. Its hallways were seemingly endless and completely confusing, crisscrossing each other and leaving Keith feeling backtracked. The numbers by the doors didn’t make sense either, jumping from 300s to 500s and back again. He was forced to walk in circles, somehow continuing to not recognize hallways even after he’d already walked through them (or at least, he was pretty sure he’d already walked through them).

“Are you lost?”

Keith jolted to a halt, looking up from the paper schedule he’d been staring hard at, the number 402 engraved in his brain.

“Um…” The woman before him looked kind enough. Only a few years older than himself, surely — possibly a teacher’s assistant? — with dark skin and dyed silver hair. She was smiling.

“Yeah.”

“Are you new here?”

“Yeah. I just transferred.”

The woman nodded, stepping forward to look down at his schedule. “You’re right down this hall,” she informed, stretching a finger out before them. “English with Mrs. Kelly.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem. I’m Allura, by the way.”

“Keith,” Keith returned, before taking a step back, his hand raised in thanks. He hurried the rest of the way to his class, the halls having begun to actually fill with people during his bout of being unable to navigate the school, and he sidled into a seat in the back of the classroom with a relieved sigh.

His teacher had yet to arrive, a good ten minutes still to go before the bell rang, but slowly more students began trickling in, setting their bags down on desks and arriving in pairs, talking with friends and calling across the classroom to others. Keith just sat on his phone, a dumb game open to occupy the time.

“This seat taken?”

Keith jerked his head up, blinking when he recognized the short girl from earlier. Pidge.

“Oh, it’s you. No, you can have it.”

Pidge smiled and slid into the seat, plopping her worn-looking backpack beside her. “I didn’t realize you were a senior,” she said, not looking at Keith as she pulled out her own phone and tapped at it.

“Well… I am,” Keith said, a bit unnecessarily.

“You’ll like it here,” Pidge promised, her voice soothing and reliable surrounded by all the indistinct chatter in the classroom. She sounded so sure of herself that Keith almost couldn’t help believing her. “And Mrs. Kelly’s nice too — I had her last year as well. Annotate the first few articles she gives us really well and she won’t bother to check your homework for the rest of the year.”

“That’s awesome,” Keith responded, mainly because he couldn’t very well not respond to someone talking to him. He’d never really had any friends before. When he’d been little, switching through foster care so often, he hadn’t really had time to get situated in any one place, and it didn’t help that he’d been a shy kid, never really trying to make friends on his own anyway.

He’d managed to stay in one area for middle school, despite switching foster families twice, but by then he’d never really gotten the hang of making friends, and being alone was what he was used to. He’d talked to people in school, of course, but he’d never had anyone over after school, never gone to a friend’s house or been invited to a birthday party. After a while, he just got used to being alone.

And now, making friends wasn’t really something he understood how to do. That didn’t stop it from being one of the items on his wishlist, pathetically enough.

Still, Pidge seemed nice enough, and she didn’t really care about the lack of conversation from Keith's end, either, busy typing away on her own phone. Plus, Keith had more to worry about than conversing with a potential friend, it seemed.

It was quickly becoming obvious that Hunk hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d said they didn’t get very many new students here. Keith had always known he’d lived in a pretty small area, but he didn’t realize it was small enough that any new student was like a drop of blood in the ocean — it was like everyone could _sense_  him. Heads kept turning, students craning their necks to see who the new kid was in the back of the classroom. Keith didn’t even want to know how knowledge of a new kid had spread that quickly, practically old news by the time the first bell had even rung.

Class started without a hitch, other than whispers filtering through the room at his name on the roster. (And thankfully it really _was_  his name. He’d been concerned, afraid his birth name would somehow manage to follow him from middle school despite having been changed legally with his foster moms years ago).

“They’ll calm down soon enough,” Pidge murmured to him, her knees pulled up in what was surely an uncomfortable position, hunched over her phone on her desk and tapping away at it methodically. It was the first day of class and already she didn’t seem to care about the learning part. Then again, she didn’t exactly look like the type of person who didn’t care about grades — maybe she was just one of those lucky few who could manage to get A’s without studying or even paying attention in class.

The rest of period went by quickly, filled with talk of the syllabus and even a tad bit of actual learning, something which readily disheartened the majority of class, seeing as no one really felt prepared for actual learning on the first day of school. By the time the bell rung Keith had already shoved all his supplies back into his backpack and was clutching his schedule, about ready to find that Allura girl again and get her to direct him to his next class.

“Know where you’re going?” Pidge asked helpfully, and Keith turned, surprised that she was still even there. It was strange, a complete stranger being so helpful, but maybe that was just the type of person she was. Anyway, she snatched the schedule out of his hands before he could answer and hummed under her breath. “Your class is on the way to mine — I’ll walk you to it.” And so she did.

Pidge fought through the crowded hallways with the tired ease of someone used to its insanity. People who were obviously freshman (Keith knew because they looked as confused as he did) steered clear of her glowering face, and Keith found his path pretty easily with her shoving the way open for him. Some people turned, their mouths open as if to snap something at the person who’d just pushed them, only to lay eyes on her and turn quickly back around.

Keith felt glad that he’d somehow managed to get on her good side.

“You’re in here,” Pidge finally said, coming to a stop in front of a door identical to all the rest. “Mr. Iman. This class’ll make you hate your life — I took it freshman year.”

 _Freshman year?_  Keith thought, incredulous. He’d come to talk to his counselor over the summer about the courses he needed to take and they’d said this was a senior course. What the fuck?

“Thanks,” Keith managed, around his surprise and now fear for a class that was apparently going to make him hate his life. Pidge just nodded at him.

“We eat in the computer lab if you want to join us,” she added, and without waiting for a response, disappeared into the crowd. Keith wasn’t surprised to see it parting around her.

His next class — Physics — really did seem like it was going to make him hate his life. It was still the first day, so mainly only introductions and such, but the teacher went ahead and did a few practice problems for them that left Keith feeling dizzy. His next class was government, as easy as it was boring, and then it was lunch time.

A voice in the back of his head, sounding suspiciously like his new acquaintance Pidge, reminded him that he’d actually been invited somewhere for lunch. But then he remembered that that would involve (most likely awkward) conversation with near-strangers for an entire half hour, not to mention the fact that he didn’t even know where the computer labs were. And so, feeling much more confident in his decision, Keith wandered back towards the library he’d stumbled across three separate times during his morning exploration of the school.

There were signs and such instructing students not to bring food or drink into the library but Keith pretended not to see them as he made his way to a back corner, pulling a random book onto his lap and a homemade sandwich out of his bag. He ate it quickly, half-afraid a librarian really would come to prosecute him for his rule breakage, and stuffed the trash back where it’d came from when he was finished.

After lunch he only had one more class of the day, and then he’d be free to go home and take off his pants and lay in his bed for several hours. He’d been forced to take an elective in order to graduate from the high school, meaning it was with trepidation that he made his way towards the arts hallway (with assistance from nice-looking teachers). He’d loved to draw when he was younger, but it was something he’d lost his passion for, meaning the most he ever did nowadays was doodle on the corner of non-important papers while waiting to do more important things.

It only made sense that it was in this hallway when he ran into Lance again.

“…can’t _believe_  she broke up with him,” said his loud, attention-drawing voice. It was like he wasn’t even speaking to just the people around him, like he was aware that if he spoke loudly and passionately enough it would encourage everyone else to be interested, to listen to what he was saying as well. Of fucking course he was a drama kid.

He was leaning against a wall across from a pair of doors embroidered with the classic masks of drama, happiness and tragedy. His hands were extended as he gesticulated and two girls stood in front of him, listening to what he had to say with rapt attention.

“I heard it was because he cheated on her,” one girl stage-whispered. Another drama kid then, probably. She had the stage-whispering down, anyway.

“No way,” Lance scoffed. “That guy could barely get ahold of one chick, but a second? Nah, I bet Ashley just wanted to stir up some drama.”

“You’re totally right, Lance.”

Lance shrugged, smirking. And then he looked up, catching Keith watching him. Again.

“Keith!” he called, making Keith blink in surprise. They weren’t friends. Not-friends didn’t call across hallways to each other, did they?

Keith raised his hand, waving it slightly, and Lance laughed, loud and boisterous. “That’s Keith,” he said to his audience of two (and extended audience, of everyone listening in while pretending they weren’t). “He’s new this year.”

Many faces turned his way, and Keith managed more of a grimace than a smile before backing into the art room, where his teacher greeted him with a firm, awkward handshake and directed him to his seat.

All in all, his first day went relatively smoothly. No major bumps in the road, no embarrassments, and he was able to sit on the steps in front of the school feeling relatively at ease. Sherry would be there within the hour to pick him up and take him home, seeing as none of the school buses went to his part of town.

Keith hunkered down, his elbows planted firmly on his knees as he set in to wait. He pulled up the same dumb phone game he’d been playing earlier in the day and played it mindlessly, oblivious to the students talking and exiting the school all around him. That is, until someone said his name.

“Hey, it’s Keith,” said Pidge, and Keith jerked his head up, turning to stare at the girl, accompanied by her two comrades. They were all standing in front of Keith, a few steps below him. “How was your first day?” she asked.

“Good,” Keith said, clicking the power button on his phone to be polite, even though he was getting close to his high score. “No, yeah — it was good. Not too difficult.”

“You didn’t join us for lunch,” Pidge pointed out.

“I don’t know where the computer lab is,” Keith answered, and Pidge pointed at him and nodded, as if to say, _touché_.

“What’re you sitting here for, man?” Hunk asked, glancing towards the busses that were now starting to drive away. It was kind of ridiculous, but something in him warmed up at that, at hearing a near-stranger so casually call him ‘man’. It wasn’t too long ago when he’d been nervous to even go in public, so desperately wanting to not be misgendered.

“The busses don’t go to my side of town,” Keith said. “I’m waiting to be picked up.”

“Yo, they don’t go to where Lance lives either,” Hunk said, gesturing to him. “That’s why I drive him every day. You want a ride?”

Keith’s mouth dropped open. Here he was, his first day of high school, being offered a ride home by someone he’d barely just met. A part of him — an admittedly big part — wanted to decline, afraid of any awkward conversations that might ensue in the car ride. But an even bigger part liked the idea of getting to go home and not have to sit around waiting for Sherry even more, so he nodded.

“That’d be awesome, actually,” he said, getting carefully to his feet and shrugging his bag onto his shoulder. “My ride wasn’t going to be here for an hour.”

“Damn,” Hunk said, before smiling kindly. “Glad I offered you a ride, then!” And he actually sounded sincere. He started to lead the way towards his car and Keith followed, falling in step beside Lance and Pidge.

“Shotgun!” Pidge suddenly called out, and then raced across the parking lot to ensure her claim. Lance immediately started complaining loudly, shouting after her about how short her legs were and how unfair the world was, but he didn’t give chase.

Keith had never been driven by anyone his age before. Shiro didn’t count, having been able to drive since before Keith was even adopted, and he himself didn’t count either. It’d been Sherry and Deb’s ceaseless and obsessive instructing that’d taught him, so he doubted very many other teens could drive quite as well as he could.

Thankfully, Hunk turned out to be a careful driver. One that Keith would soon learn was almost _too_  careful. For example, he drove the way Keith drove whenever either Sherry or Deb were in the car with him.

“Hunk, what the hell are you doing?” Pidge snapped from the front seat.

“Slowing down?”

“ _Why_?”

“It’s a yellow light, Pidge! That means slow down!”

“Yeah, if you’re far enough away!” Pidge insisted. “God, you drive like my grandma.”

“Your grandma’s dead, Pidge,” Lance piped up from beside Keith, making Keith’s eyes go wide at the blatancy. Hunk’s car was pretty small, which meant sitting in the back with Lance was impossible without their knees being pressed together.

“Yeah, and even her ghost could drive faster than this,” Pidge assured, making Lance snort and Hunk shake his head wearily, obviously used to the crude kind of jokes but unwilling to actually participate in them.

The light turned green and Pidge’s anger-fuel vanished, leaving the way for Lance to blaze through with a new conversation topic. “Did you guys see Allura today? Because _damn_.”

“Lance, hearing you talk about Allura makes me want to rip my ears off,” Pidge said, point-blank, and Lance just shrugged uncaringly.

“I’m just saying — that dress? With those heels? She could kill me wearing that outfit and I’d thank her.”

“Sure you would,” said Hunk.

“Hunk! Come on! You can’t act like she’s not beautiful!”

“Sure, sure, she’s beautiful,” Hunk muttered. “Only _one_  of the many beautiful girls around, but…”

“Oh my God, Shay again? I thought we agreed on no more lamenting over the fact that she’s not your girlfriend until you actually build up the courage to ask her out?”

Hunk grumbled something in response, hunching over the steering wheel in annoyance, and Lance suddenly turned to Keith in a whirlwind, making Keith shrink back a little in surprise. “What about you, Keith? Did you see Allura? She’s like, tall? White hair? Stunningly beautiful?”

“Um, yeah I think I did see her,” Keith muttered, twisting his fingers together in his lap nervously. She’d been the one to direct him to his first class. He’d noticed she was gorgeous, of course, but like. In an abject kind of way. After all, girls weren’t really his thing.

“Well? Hot, right?”

“Right,” Keith said. Lance squinted at him.

“You know, you look _really_  familiar,” he said, shaking his head and scrutinizing Keith intensely, as if he could figure out from where he knew Keith if he just looked hard enough. “Are you sure we don’t know each other?”

“Positive,” Keith said, before hastily glancing away from Lance and out the window. They were passing over the bridge, which separated the east and western halves of their town.

Keith remembered Lance well from middle school, and he guessed it was a happy testament to how much he’d changed that Lance didn’t recognize him outright. Still, he remembered Lance as loud and obnoxious and attention hogging. The kind of middle school boy he’d avoided. Lance didn’t seem to have changed much, really, which made Keith fear Lance figuring it out. He didn’t know how he or anyone else would react, much less whether they were able to keep a secret. After all, he’d seen how quickly news had spread in the school just that morning, and that’d just been because he was new.

“Keith? I’m gonna drop you off first, is that okay?” Hunk said from up front, and Keith hastily nodded. A whirlwind of excuses whipped through his brain — _they want to get rid of me sooner, they want to continue hanging out together and need to get rid of me first_  — which he tried his best to ignore. Plus, it would make sense if they wanted to keep hanging out but without Keith. The three of them were _friends_ , Hunk was just nice enough to have offered Keith a ride home.

Keith ended up directing Hunk to his house, and by the time they got there Hunk let out a hum. “You live really close to Lance, you know that?”

“Yeah,” Lance chimed in. “I’m like —” he gestured behind a row of houses “— two streets over.”

“Oh,” Keith said, having nothing better to say to that.

“You sure we didn’t go to the same middle school or something?” Lance said. “Did you like, skip a grade?”

“Nope,” Keith assured him, before smiling up at Hunk. “Thank you for driving me,” he said.

“No problem! I can pick you up tomorrow after getting Lance, if you want.”

Keith’s mouth dropped open. It was just… no one’s seriously _that_  nice, right? Surely there was some kind of horrible prank coming up down the road. Or Hunk was so driven by the need to be polite that he and everyone else would be groaning the second they drove away, wishing he’d just kept his fat mouth shut.

No other explanation really made any sense to Keith. People didn’t just try to make friends this easily, did they? Inviting someone into their car, into their lunch group, into their _lives_. What did any of them want to do with Keith?

“Um…” Keith said. His mind was stuttering past all the assurances Sherry and Deb and Shiro had given him, telling him to talk to people, to take the opportunities that came, that he’d be making friends in no time. It seemed disrespectful to them to turn down Hunk, who somehow seemed so genuine about all this. “Only if you really don’t mind…”

“Not at all,” Hunk said, smiling easily. “See you around 8:15ish?”

“Yeah, sounds great,” Keith muttered.

“Wait!” Lance jumped in. Oh God, this was it. He was going to step in and keep Hunk from ruining their perfectly good, Keith-free mornings. “You’d better give Hunk your number. He’s actually horrible at showing up at the time he says he’s going to.”

“Traffic’s unpredictable, Lance,” Hunk said, in a tired voice that suggested they’d had this same argument before. He handed his phone to Lance, though, who handed it to Keith without looking, already facing Hunk again.

“It’s only unpredictable when you drive as slow as you do,” Lance quipped. “The flow of traffic changes _around_  you.”

“Ha-ha,” said Hunk, deadpan.

“Here,” Keith said, having typed his number into the phone. As Keith watched, Lance looked down at the phone, clicked ‘share contact’, and sent his contact to a group chat entitled ‘witty convo name’.

“There,” he said. “Now we all have it.”

Keith didn’t know what to say to that, so he just took a step back and muttered, “See you tomorrow,” before turning around and jogging up the driveway. Hunk stayed and idled in front of his house while Keith unlocked the door, only leaving after Keith had turned around and waved, three hands returning it before the orange car drove slowly away. Keith could imagine Pidge and Lance groaning inside while Hunk insisted that they were driving in a residential area.

By the time Keith closed the front door behind him, he found himself smiling. He’d dreamt up all sorts of horrifying first day scenarios, and though he’d tried to come up with a handful of best-case scenarios as well, none of them had even come close to him getting invited to lunch and ending up with a ride to school. Which reminded him.

He texted Sherry, telling her he’d gotten a ride home and that she didn’t have to worry about him, before heading up the stairs and into his room, where he tossed his bag onto the chair and kicked off his shoes, barely paying attention to where they landed.

Moments later, he was binder-free and taking deep, unencumbered breaths, and then he was throwing on a giant sweatshirt and letting the material swallow him whole. He shucked off his pants and collapsed in his bed, feeling comfortable and at peace.

Only a few minutes later — honestly, Keith had been expecting this since walking through the front door — there came a loud banging on his bedroom door, and Shiro scarcely waited for Keith’s, “Come in,” before he was barging in.

His grin seemed to encompass his whole face as he bounded across the room, bouncing Keith on the bed as he demanded to know about his day, ignoring Keith’s protests. He’d been adopted much younger than Keith, but he’d still been on the older side for being in the foster system. Turned out, most parents don’t want to adopt kids who were “different”, kids born with only one arm or who claimed they weren’t the gender they’d been assigned at birth.

Of course, most parents didn’t include two lesbians with a wicked inheritance and absolutely zero desire for anything to do with babies. Hence the adopted kids with lots of monetary needs, considering Shiro’s prosthetic and Keith’s testosterone.

Keith managed to quiet Shiro’s demands, insisting that he didn’t want to have to tell it all again when their parents got home, though he had to stave him off by including the fact that he’d had a good first day, after all.

It wasn’t long before Deb and Sherry arrived home, filling the house with their excited chatter and the obvious signal for Keith to venture downstairs, though Shiro still barged into his room to remind him. On the stairs, Keith could actually make out their voices.

“— _a ride home_?”

“I know! On his first day, too!”

“But who are they? Are they his friends now? Are they —”

“I have no clue! He didn’t say and I didn’t want to pry, you know, and —”

“Guys,” Keith interrupted. He was met by twin squeals, and then Sherry and Deb were grabbing him by the arms and ushering him into the living room, both of them talking loudly and over each other, meaning that Keith couldn’t discern a thing.

“Tell. Us. Everything!” Sherry said, dropping a hand on Keith’s knee and squeezing excitedly. Shiro plopped onto the coffee table across from him, and Keith found everyone’s excitement contagious, grinning excitedly in response and trying and failing to roll his eyes at their antics.

“I picked up like four different kinds of ice cream, just in case it wasn’t a good first day, but I put them in the freezer,” Deb was saying, talking fast. “I don’t need to get them out, do I?”

“No,” Keith laughed. “It was good.” And he ended up telling them everything, from running into the trio of friends on the front steps to getting driven home by them at the end of the day. His family reacted perfectly at all the right parts, gasping and squealing and in Shiro’s case reaching over to smack him at one point in excitement. Sherry actually looked teary-eyed by the time he was done talking, and Deb jumped to her feet.

“This calls for a celebration,” she said, and she bustled out of the room only to return with the four different cartons of ice cream.

“I thought those were for if it was a bad day?” Keith said, though he took the spoon handed to him regardless.

“Ice cream is for both comfort and celebration,” Deb announced, and Keith nodded wisely, stealing the cookie dough one all for himself and ignoring Shiro’s stink-eye because of it.

By that night, Keith found himself excited to go to sleep, almost unable to wait until the next morning. He picked his discarded pants off the floor, rifling through the pockets and pulling out his wishlist carefully. He spread it on the desk and grabbed a pen from the cup holder, clicking it open and scratching through the words, _go back to school._

He’d added that particular wish shortly after opting to take online classes. Although he’d liked the comfort of being at home, the ease of which he’d been able to finally, properly experiment with his gender expression, there’d been a part of him that’d longed for the atmosphere of a real school, that’d wanted desperately to make friends.

And so he’d wished for it, just like he’d wished for so many other things, not knowing quite when he’d get to cross it off.


	2. eat lunch with friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Lance caught a glimpse of his face, he scoffed. “Ohhh my God,” he said. “Don’t do that straight boy shit where you pretend like you don’t know how attractive you are.”
> 
> Keith’s mind was a jumbled mess. His thoughts were flying chaotically through there, and one thing that stuck was, _Lance thinks I’m attractive?_ But what came out of his mouth was, “I’m not straight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for all the comments and kudos you guys have left so far!! i'm glad everyone seems to be excited for this fic, i know i definitely am :D 
> 
> please enjoy!!

Keith woke up late. In his apparent excitement for it to be the next day, he’d forgotten to set his alarm, which meant that with five minutes to spare until it was time for Hunk to pick him up, he was scrambling around his room in a desperate attempt to be ready in time and not screw everything up before it’d even had a chance to begin.

He had one pant leg on and a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth as he shoved his hair into a ponytail, realizing simultaneously that he had no time to shower and that his hair was getting long again. His phone buzzed on his dresser, the screen lighting up with an unknown number, and Keith groaned around his toothbrush and brushed faster, hopping into his pants as he stumbled across the room, unlocking his phone with his free hand.

[Unknown number]: be there in a minute!!!!

[Unknown number]: also i’m not texting and driving dw

[Unknown number]: lance is texting for me

[Unknown number]: ;D

“Fuck,” Keith grumbled around his toothbrush, before sliding back into the bathroom to spit in the sink. He pulled on a pair of socks, struggled into his binder and the first shirt he could fine (a sniff proved that it was clean, or at least clean enough) before he was charging down the stairs, his backpack bouncing off his back as he did, his wishlist hastily shoved in his pocket. He never went anywhere without it.

“Woah! You in a hurry?” Sherry called from the kitchen.

“Forgot to set my alarm!” Keith gasped. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a car pull into his driveway, and he ducked down and snatched up his shoes before bursting out of the house, calling a goodbye after him as he sprinted towards the car, panting.

“Woah!” Hunk said, spinning around to look at Keith from up front as he wrenched the door open. “You didn’t have to rush! Pidge always takes at least five minutes when I get to her house.”

“You can’t rush perfection,” Pidge said.

“Hear, hear!” said Lance.

Still panting, Keith shoved his bag onto the floor, clambered in after it, and shut the door behind him, still holding onto his shoes. He was pretty sure his socks had holes in them.

“I forgot to set my alarm,” he explained. “Woke up… five minutes ago.”

Lance turned to him, gaping. “ _What_?”

“What?”

Lance just shrugged. He muttered something under his breath, which almost sounded like, “Turns out you _can_  rush perfection.” Keith chose to ignore him, because it was far more likely he was hearing him incorrectly anyway.

“You’re not in a rush to get to school, are you Keith?” Hunk asked, while pulling out of the driveway. Keith glanced towards the door, noticing Sherry in the window and offering up a wave. She waved back.

“No,” Keith said, although a part of him spiked in fear, worried that his new friends — could he consider them his friends? — were going to convince him to skip on his second day of school. Not that he entirely minded not being at school, but he didn’t want Sherry and Deb to receive a phone call and think he was trying to disrespect them or something.

“Awesome,” said Hunk. “We usually stop for coffee on our way to school.”

“Pidge can’t function without caffeine,” Lance informed Keith, leaning into his space to do so. “She turns into a terrifying, tiny monster.”

“Speak for yourself,” Pidge grouched.

Lance lowered his voice, holding up a hand to block Pidge and pointing into it. “ _See_?”

Keith hadn’t brought his wallet with him in his backpack, so when they got to the coffee shop and all piled out, he muttered something about how he wouldn’t be ordering anything. Lance took offense to this, insisting that Keith couldn’t just _not_  get something, so he ended up buying something for Keith instead, despite Keith’s protests.

After that, the drive to school was significantly more active and loud as everyone began to wake up, though Lance didn’t really seem to change much from his pre-caffeinated state.

“Today starts phase one of Operation: We’re Leaving And So Is Mr. Iverson,” Lance announced, as they crossed over the bridge and got closer to school.

“That name’s too long,” Pidge insisted.

“Operation: Fire That Bastard.”

“Too crude,” Hunk said. Lance huffed, annoyed.

“Operation: The Seniors Say So-Long!”

No one said anything. “What, you like that one?” Lance said incredulously, looking around at them all.

“No. We just know you’ll keep going without thinking of any better names, so we’re quitting before it gets any worse,” Pidge said, and Lance flicked her off.

“Who’s Mr. Iverson?” Keith asked, which must’ve been a mistake, as Lance spun to face him dramatically.

“Only the absolute worst teacher to ever grace the planet,” Lance announced. Surprisingly, Hunk and Pidge were nodding in the front seat, a testament to how bad he truly was. “He’s my homeroom teacher, so I’ve had to suffer through his presence all throughout high school,” Lance explained with a shudder. “He teaches the advanced sciences though, so Hunk and Pidge didn’t believe how horrible he was until they had him last year for AP chem.”

“He failed me on a lab because my hair wasn’t pulled back,” Pidge said. “And it’s not even long enough _to_  pull back!”

“I’ve been planning his downfall since freshman year, and this is the year when I’ll finally get him fired,” Lance promised, rubbing his hands together evilly.

“And how are you going to manage that this year, Lance?” Hunk questioned.

“I think I’m going to goad him into slapping me,” Lance said, revealing his oh-so-grand plan. “You can’t keep a teacher who slaps a kid.”

“ _This_  is why your plans never work,” Pidge said. “They’re bad plans.”

“Shut up!” Lance said. “You’re bad plans!”

They were pulling into the parking lot then, Hunk maneuvering through the other cars in the in order to be able to pull through into his space. With that, he was popping the locks and everyone was pouring out of the car, Keith hurrying to follow after them. He was filled with a momentary panic, wondering if he was supposed to split off from them now or stick with them, and which one would be weirder.

Thankfully, the bell was close to ringing and everyone was heading off to their classes anyway. Lance, whose class was apparently in the same hall as Keith’s, offered to walk him there. A few people called out to Lance as they walked, and Lance exchanged the typically dude-bro handshake with several of the people who did.

Finally, they came to a stop outside Keith’s classroom. Instead of dropping him off and walking away, Lance spun around and leaned against the row of lockers beside them, facing Keith.

“Right down there’s the computer lab,” Lance explained, leaning around Keith to point further down the hall, which Keith craned his neck to see. “That’s where we eat lunch, so you can just meet us in there after third block.”

Mustering up the courage and trying to ignore his embarrassment, Keith said, “You don’t have to invite me for lunch, if you don’t really want me.”

“Why wouldn’t we want you?” Lance said, looking genuinely confused.

“You barely know me,” Keith said. “I — you can’t _really_  want some new guy hanging around you guys. It’s your senior year…”

“It’s your senior year too,” Lance insisted. “And yeah, we totally do. We wouldn’t have invited you otherwise.” Maybe seeing Keith’s bewildered expression, Lance decided to continue. “I didn’t start going here until the end of freshman year,” he explained. “I thought it was going to be horrible. Everyone would already have their friend groups and I’d be all alone. Except Pidge and Hunk saw me sitting alone at lunch and joined me. We’ve been best friends ever since.”

“Why’d you transfer to a new school at the end of freshman year?” Keith asked.

“Ehh, some of the kids from my old school were dicks, so my mom got me transferred here,” he said, shrugging nonchalantly. Keith nodded slowly, deciding not to press for more answers. “So join us at lunch, okay?”

“Okay,” Keith said, and Lance grinned.

“See you there, Mullet!” he said, before saluting him and spinning on his heel. Keith watched him walk all the way down the hall before turning the corner. Turned out his class wasn’t near Keith’s after all.

—

In the end, school was school. It was more exhausting than online schooling, considering the fact that he had to wake up early and wear real clothes and pay attention non-stop. But it was also kind of fun, in a lame way. Like, Keith got to see people being friends with each other, witnessing conversations they held that were hilarious that no one else was even aware of. A few people talked to him, just absent-minded conversation about how he was new and if he was liking it and where he had come from. Plus, there was the fact that Keith was actually looking forward to lunch, knowing that he for once had somewhere he was going to be.

After first block, he had a vague understanding of where he was supposed to be for his next class, and it was as he was crossing the school that his name was called. He turned his head, realizing it was Allura.

Keith struggled across the hall in order to get to her, the students rushing past him on either side neither realizing nor caring that they were making it impossible to simply cross the hall. How did anyone get used to this?

“Hey,” Keith said, a bit breathless after finally making it beside Allura. Thankfully, the crowd was actually parting around her where she stood against the wall, though Keith couldn’t tell if this was because of the fact that she was already out of the way or because of the aura she seemed to emit. Or maybe it was because of the fact that she glared at anyone who got to close to her.

“Keith!” Allura repeated, sounding excited and smiling hugely at him, acting as if they were familiar with each other. Keith was surprised she even remembered her name. “How was your first day? How are you enjoying Jefferson?”

“Good,” Keith said with a shrug. “I like it.” He spared a glance down the hall, hoping Allura wasn’t about to make him late. He didn’t want to get on the bad side of whichever teacher he was about to have.

“Wonderful!” Allura said, clapping her hands together. “You know, we don’t get new students around here very often.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard.”

“If you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to ask!” she said, and Keith started to wonder why she was being so nice to him. She had to have some sort of ulterior motive for being nice to him, right? No one was just _that_  nice…

“Keith!”

Was he going to have to get used to people calling out his name? He jolted as an arm was flung around his shoulders, Lance leaning beside him and smiling at Allura. “I see you’ve met my new friend, Allura.”

Stupidly enough, Keith felt his cheeks heating up. He wished he could forget how cute Lance was. It definitely wouldn’t be a good idea for him to get a crush on a straight boy.

“Oh, you two know each other?” Allura said, her gaze flicking between them. Her eyes seemed to linger on Keith for a second, and then they moved incredibly slowly towards Lance, seeming to trace the path of his arm around Keith’s shoulders. Finally, she got this horrible kind of knowing glint in her eye, the corner of her mouth curling up. Keith felt something inside himself shrivel and die.

“Yep!” Lance said, totally oblivious to whatever was going on in Allura’s mind, or to the fact that Keith had stiffened up beside him. “Pidge and Hunk pretty much adopted him right away.”

Keith, because his mouth didn’t like cooperating with his brain, said, “Guess I’m on a roll with being adopted, then.”

“Woah, you’re adopted?” Lance said, turning to look at him, and his face was really fucking close.

“Yeah,” Keith said, except alarms were going off in his brain. That wasn’t enough to connect him to the person Lance might’ve recognized him as in middle school, right? Back then he’d been that poor foster kid with a lot more hair and a lot less testosterone. He’d only been on it for a short time now, but he couldn’t deny that he was vastly enjoying the changes it brought.

“That’s cool,” Lance said, and then a bell was ringing loudly and he was cursing under his breath. “We gotta run, Allura,” he said, before dragging Keith after him.

His arm was _still_  wrapped around Keith’s shoulders, and he was leaning in close and murmuring something into his ear, and it sounded vaguely suggestive except Keith couldn’t actually process any of the words, because Lance was so _close_  and he swore he could feel his lips against his ear and —

“McClain!” someone snapped. Lance jumped to attention, his arm falling from Keith’s shoulders as he stood stiffly, looking at a teacher with this weird expression on his face, like a mix of trepidation and anger. “No fondling in the hallways!”

Keith’s face went bright red, his eyes widening as he stumbled a step away from Lance, embarrassment coursing through his veins like a river.

“We weren’t —” Lance began, but the teacher interrupted him with, “Get to class!” before disappearing into a classroom of his own.

Lance was standing stiffly, glowering, and he turned to face Keith angrily. “I fucking hate him,” he said darkly. A few students still lingering in the halls offered passing glances, a few of them with sympathetic smiles.

“Was that…?”

“Iverson? Yeah,” Lance said bitterly. He started walking, and Keith followed him automatically. “He’s such an asshole. And a homophobe.” Keith stayed silent, his fingers twisting together anxiously in his sweatshirt pocket as he waited for Lance to elaborate. “Like, last year, I was having this dumb fling with a guy, whatever,” Lance said, waving his hand nonchalantly, as if Keith’s insides weren’t imploding at that very second. “And he like pecked my cheek in the hallway, but Iverson saw. And girls and guys literally make out along the walls in between classes, and yet _we_  got detention because of that.”

Keith cleared his throat. “That’s bullshit,” he said, and Lance nodded emphatically.

“I know!” he said. “Anyway, sorry if he thinks you’re gay now.”

Keith stuttered his way through a response, saying, “Oh, it’s — yeah, it’s fine.” He _was_  gay, after all, so it wasn’t like Iverson would be thinking the wrong thing, though Lance clearly thought he was straight. Then again, Keith had just thought the same thing about Lance.

“God, he pisses me off so much,” Lance muttered, before coming to a stop outside a classroom. Belatedly, Keith realized it was his own. “Hold on, Mrs. Folly loves me,” Lance said, before ducking into the classroom despite the class just beginning, the teacher already at the front of the classroom.

“Hey Mrs. F,” Lance said, and the teacher turned to look at him, Keith standing awkwardly behind his shoulder. “Just dropping off our new student!” He yanked Keith into the classroom, who stumbled forward awkwardly and glared at Lance. As if anyone ever wanted to be put in the center of attention. Well… except for Lance. He seemed to like it. Lavish in it. “Anyway, can I have a pass? So Mr. Smith doesn’t yell at me for being late?”

Mrs. Folly rolled her eyes good-naturedly, reaching over to her desk to snatch a pink slip of paper. “I don’t know how you always manage to get passes out of me,” she muttered, taking a moment to sign something on the paper before crossing the room to hand it to Lance.

“It’s because you love me,” Lance said with a grin, and Mrs. Folly shoved him out of the room.

“Get to class!” she instructed, before momentarily dropping a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Welcome, by the way. Sit anywhere you’d like.”

“Thanks,” Keith said, and he squeezed past students and backpacks in order to plop down in the back of the classroom. Barely a minute later, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

[Unknown Number]: thanks for letting me have that Stellar Excuse

[Unknown Number]: mr smith was totally ready to give me detention or something that dick

[Unknown Number]: this is lance btw lol

[Unknown Number]: also sorry for dropping that iverson bs on u

[Unknown Number]: and don’t forget to come to the computer lab for lunch!!!!

Keith glanced up at the teacher after the influx of texts, but she was still talking to the class about how her class worked and other boring start-of-the-school-year stuff like that. She definitely wasn’t paying attention to Keith at the back of the class, anyway, who slouched in his seat just in case, texting Lance back in his lap.

[Keith]: It’s okay, I don’t care. And I’ll see you there.

[Lance]: WHOOP!!! see ya soon mothatruckaaa

Keith had to hold back a snort, rolling his eyes instead and tucking his phone in his pocket for the rest of class. Still, he had a hard time paying attention, his entire body on high alert, half-anticipating another text from Lance that didn’t come.

—

At lunch, Keith made his way towards the computer lab, still feeling inexplicably anxious. When he walked inside the room, no one was there.

Momentarily, he panicked, wondering if he’d been somehow set up, if he was being made fun of, if he’d maybe just found the wrong computer lab and everyone was wondering where he was. But then Hunk walked in, glancing up from his phone and smiling when he saw Keith.

“Hey Keith!” he said, before pulling out one of the computer lab’s rolling chairs and immediately plopping into it. Keith copied him, grabbing the seat beside him as he returned the greeting.

Hunk pulled out his lunch, tucked away in his backpack and kept in actual tupperware. The food inside looked and smelled delicious. It was then that Keith realized he’d forgotten to pack his own lunch, seeing as he’d woken up so late that morning. He wasn’t about to go to the cafeteria and try to navigate those lunch lines, though, and it wasn’t like missing a lunch would kill him.

“So how were your classes?” Hunk asked, now rifling through his backpack and coming out triumphant with a plastic fork in a wrapper.

“They were fine,” Keith said with a shrug. “I met Iverson. He’s a real dick.”

Hunk nodded intensely. “I know,” he said lowly. “Like, Pidge and I always knew he sucked, you know? Lance told us stories from his homeroom all the time. And then we had him for chem last year and were like, woah, this guy _really_  sucks. But it wasn’t until he said some…” Hunk trailed off for a moment, before continuing more carefully. “…really rude stuff to Lance that we realized how genuinely horrible he was.”

“The homophobic stuff?” Keith clarified, and Hunk’s eyes widened.

“He told you?”

“Yeah,” Keith said, and Hunk nodded.

“Well — yeah, that stuff. Lance’s mom went to the school board and everything, but Iverson only ever got a warning.”

Keith felt his expression darkening. It sucked that someone like that was just allowed to stick around, still teaching despite actually bullying a student.

He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to express how genuinely angry and upset he felt, and he didn’t have to. Hunk was distracted as the door burst open, Pidge and Lance coming in in the middle of a heated discussion.

“I swear to God!” Lance was saying, his lip quirked up in a grin as his hands gestured through the air while he spoke, Pidge looking grumpy as he did. “I _saw_ them —”

“Lance, I don’t believe you for a second,” Pidge interrupted. She held up a finger. “Because _one_ , you’re the biggest gossip I know and you’ll believe anything you hear. And _two_ , we can’t be sure if you _actually_  saw them, seeing as you never wear your glasses.”

“I don’t need them!” Lance insisted, and Pidge scoffed.

“That’s not how glasses _work_ , Lance. If you have them, you’re supposed to wear them.”

“Nah,” said Lance. He finally seemed to become aware of the fact that there were other people in the room, and he looked around at Hunk and Keith and grinned. “Hey guys! How’s it goin’?” He crossed the room and hopped up onto the counter between Hunk and Keith, shoving a keyboard out of the way to do so.

“’S goin’ good,” Hunk said around a forkful of what Keith was pretty sure was tortellini. “How was gov?”

“Boring as hell,” Lance said, as he pulled a crumpled paper bag out of his backpack. He then pulled out a bar, shoving half of it in his mouth in one bite.

Pidge pulled up another chair, closing the circle Keith, Hunk, and Lance had formed. “Has everyone been asking you guys about Keith?” she asked, gesturing to Keith as she looked between Lance and Hunk. “Everyone keeps bugging me. They all want to know about the new guy.”

A weight that Keith hadn’t even been aware of seemed to lift off his shoulders. Maybe it was ridiculous, but somewhere in the back of his mind he’d been worried about being misgendered. For so long it’d been something that he’d just had to deal with. His family had been the first people to ever adhere to his name and pronouns, which was something so monumental to him that at first he’d been weirdly emotional about it all. And then, of course, there were all the other people in the world who didn’t know him, who had just seen him as a girl with short hair. Going in public had been his nightmare, a place filled with people who were likely to see him as someone he wasn’t, who might try to talk to him, might misgender him.

It was wonderful and insane to know that he was finally, finally passing. Strangers finally saw him as a man, referred to him as one without needing to be corrected, and that was something Keith was loving getting used to.

“Oh, totally,” Lance said, and Keith blinked, realizing the conversation was still going on. “I mean they’ve seen us hanging out with you,” he said with a nod to Keith. And then, in falsetto, _“Oh, he’s so cute! Is he nice? Is he single?”_

Keith’s face went bright red. His mouth dropped open, and when Lance caught a glimpse of his face, he scoffed. “Ohhh my God,” he said. “Don’t do that straight boy shit where you pretend like you don’t know how attractive you are.”

Keith’s mind was a jumbled mess. His thoughts were flying chaotically through there, and one thing that stuck was, _Lance thinks I’m attractive?_  But what came out of his mouth was, “I’m not straight.”

Pidge laughed, bent over her own lap as she did, and Hunk smiled that genuine smile of his while Lance’s cheeks went pink. As if to play it off, Lance scoffed. “Act like it, then!”

Keith chuckled, his face still feeling overly warm. The mixture of happy and embarrassed emotions in him dissipated when Hunk said, sounding serious, “Wait a minute…”

He was staring at Keith, his eyes squinted, and Keith felt a nervous chill pass over him. “Keith, do you not have a lunch?”

“What?”

“You’re not eating anything,” Hunk pointed out, and relief washed over Keith like a tidal wave.

“Oh, yeah. I forgot to pack a lunch because I woke up late.”

Immediately, as if their brains were connected, Lance shoved his hand into his paper bag and pulled out a second bar; Pidge thrusted an apple in Keith’s direction; and Hunk held out his tupperware, his fork speared in one of the pastas as if waiting for Keith to pick it up.

“Woah,” Keith said. And then, “I’m not gonna take your lunch, guys. I’m fine.”

“And I love Iverson,” Lance scoffed, before tossing the bar and having it land on Keith’s lap. “I’m not gonna lie, that bar’s been in my backpack for a while now, but I mean. I’d still eat it.”

“Thanks,” Keith huffed, and Pidge shoved the apple into his lap as well.

“I hate apples,” she said.

“Then why’d you bring one?”

Pidge blinked. “Just eat it,” she said, seemingly unable to come up with a better excuse.

Hunk nudged his lunch towards Keith again, and Keith shook his head firmly. “No, seriously,” he said. “I’m not even that hungry.”

Hunk really didn’t want to take no for an answer, but Keith absolutely refused to take it, and eventually he resumed eating his lunch. All in all, it was the best lunch Keith could ever remember having at school.

Without having made any real friends before, seeing as in elementary school the other kids had seen him as the weird foster kid and by middle school he’d decided he was over trying to make friends, he’d never really had anyone to sit with before. He’d usually just sat alone, or at the end of a table where other people without friends would sit to eat, none of them talking to each other, all just on their phones and doing homework or reading books.

This was something so completely different to anything Keith had ever experienced before. It was almost hard for him to eat his (donated) lunch, seeing as he could barely find the time to eat with all the laughing his was doing, all the stories that were drawn out of him. The trio of friends Keith found himself with were obviously very close, their conversation at some times nearly incomprehensible, as if half their conversation was happening in their heads. But even still, it was entertaining just to watch them talk, and they never forgot about Keith either, constantly drawing him back into the conversation.

Towards the end of their lunch block, while Lance and Pidge were once again caught up in an argument about two people Lance claimed he’d seen kissing, Keith pulled out his wishlist. Written somewhere around the middle of the paper, in his sloppy, middle schooler’s handwriting, was _‘Eat lunch with friends’_. Masking a smile, Keith scratched off the item before refolding the paper, soft with use, and tucked it back into his pocket.

It wasn’t until after lunch that Keith realized he hadn’t been quite as secretive with his wishlist as he’d thought.

They all left the computer lab after the bell rang, Pidge grumbling angrily under her breath about her next class. Her and Hunk ended up going in one direction, and as Keith looked at his schedule and turned towards the direction he was pretty sure his last class was in, Lance followed him.

“So,” he said. “What was that paper you were writing on?”

Keith felt his breath catch in his lungs, his knees freezing for a step and making him stumble awkwardly in his surprise. He cleared his throat immediately afterward, trying to play it off as he fixed his gait. “Um,” he said. The thing was, his wishlist was as personal as a diary. It had all his stupid, childish, and embarrassing wishes on it, after all. The thought of someone seeing it and reading it had panic crawling down his spine.

He couldn’t exactly remember feeling like this before, but then again, he hadn’t been in school for years, and his list and changed and grown as he’d gotten older. Plus, he’d seen movies. Something embarrassing and personal like this would make him the laughing stock of the school, if it was found.

The thought almost made him want to leave his list at home, tucked in a drawer for safekeeping, but even just imagining being without his list had him feeling unbalanced. He always kept it with him, always had it handy in case he had a new wish or completed an old one.

The silence drew on between him and Lance, the tension of it uncomfortable and pressing, ready to snap. Finally, he said, “It’s nothing,” which was completely unconvincing after the horrible silence he’d just allowed to ensue. “Um, a grocery list, you know?”

“All right,” Lance said, except he looked unconvinced, and he kept sending these curious little looks to Keith out of the corner of his eye.

“I gotta get to class,” Keith said, uncomfortable, as he turned down the next hallway

“You have math next, right?” Lance said, stopping Keith in his tracks.

“Yeah.”

“That’s this way,” Lance said, nodding his head to the side as a smile crawled across his face.

“Right,” Keith said, ducking his head and following after Lance. “I had fun at lunch, by the way.”

Lance’s grin was so big it seemed to take over his entire face. He stepped to the side and bumped his shoulder into Keith’s. “Good,” he said. “We had fun too.”

Keith almost walked past his class, but Lance caught his arm and stopped him. “I’ll see you after school, okay?”

“Okay,” said Keith, and Lance clapped him on the shoulder before heading off down the hall. As Keith stepped into his classroom, he realized he was fucked.

His arm and shoulder still tingled with Lance’s touch, and he felt weirdly light and fluttery in his stomach, as if a bunch of caterpillars were crawling around, waiting to turn into butterflies.

Unbidden, his brain decided to remind Keith of Lance’s words at lunch. The, _‘Oh, he’s so cute!’_ and _, ‘Don’t do that straight boy shit where you pretend like you don’t know how attractive you are.’_

As Keith found an empty seat and sat in it, he realized he was still smiling. He had to hold back a groan, had to resist banging his head down on the table before him. _I am so, so fucked._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter: keith faces one of his fears


	3. use the men's restroom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Really, the only thing Keith was still adjusting to was Lance. 
> 
> Lance, who was almost constantly on Keith’s mind. Lance, who touched Keith all the time without thinking, grabbing his arm or wrapping an arm around his shoulder or pulling on the back of his hair, saying, “You growing this out, Mullet?”
> 
> Keith’s heart insisted on working in overdrive during any of these instances, and he was growing tired of the swarm of butterflies that’d taken up living in his stomach, in his lungs.

Keith clicked the center button on his phone, watching it light up on his desk and show him the time _(2:32)_  not for the first time. His leg was jiggling under his desk, bouncing up and down impatiently. There was only an hour and 28 minutes left of school, plus the drive home, which could be anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes depending on traffic. Of course, this was Hunk’s driving, so it could easily just be an entire half hour after the last bell by the time he got home.

Yes, Keith was anxious to get home. More than anxious, actually. Desperate.

He really, really, _really_  had to pee, and using the bathroom at school was not something that he wanted to have to deal with.

After he was adopted, finally equipped with his first binder and a fresh new haircut, he’d tried to work up the courage to use the men’s restroom in public. It was too nerve-wracking though, the thought of going into a bathroom and having someone say something to him, ask him what the hell he was doing in there and kick him out. But then again, he hadn’t exactly looked like someone who could use the women’s restrooms either. Besides, he didn’t want to go in there in the first place, and even if he did, he could face the same problem, coupled with probably being called a pervert.

And so, driven by anxiety and fear, Keith had stopped using the women’s restrooms while simultaneously being too scared to use the men’s. It’d gotten bad, at one point. The thought of going in public and needing to use a restroom had given him so much anxiety he’d started trying to avoid drinking water, afraid he’d drink something only to end up ushered out of the house by his parents or Shiro and end up uncomfortable as he held it in or desperately hoped for a single stall, unisex bathroom.

He’d ended up more uncomfortable in the end, however, when he’d developed a kidney stone due to dehydration. Sherry and Deb had been totally on his ass after that, practically pumping fluids into him at all hours of the day, and he’d learned to just live with his irrational fear.

Maybe it’d been naive of him to think he could make it the entire year without having to use the bathroom. He was pretty good at drinking water, now, the memory of his kidney stone enough to make him feel thirsty. But that day he’d been drinking without thinking, apparently drinking too much for his bladder to handle.

He couldn’t tell his friends about what was wrong with him either. They obviously wouldn’t understand why he had some sort of aversion to using the restroom, and he didn’t really feel inclined to come out because of his need to pee, although he was feeling more and more comfortable about the idea of coming out to them with every passing day.

It was obvious that, by some miracle, he’d landed himself in the best group of friends he could’ve possibly managed. Surprisingly, Keith seemed to click with them like a puzzle piece, feelings so completely like he belonged that he could hardly believe he’d been without the three of them mere weeks ago.

Since starting school, he’d grown a lot less anxious and stressed about everything. Hunk picked him up every day, and he wasn’t mad when Keith needed an extra minute or two before running out to the car. Keith still forgot his wallet frequently, but he insisted on buying Lance’s coffee the day after Lance insisted on buying his. They’d almost begun a coffee war between the two of them, constantly trying to shove money at the cashier before the other.

Classes were good — tedious, but good. Pidge was right about physics being hell, but it seemed to be the only overly hard class Keith had, and Pidge had no problem with helping him with the homework in their class together. She never bothered to pay attention to their teacher, anyway.

Lunch was Keith’s favorite part of the day. Now, he walked towards the computer lab purposefully. He was always the first one there, and he always settled into a chair to wait the few minutes for everyone to get there. Lance usually burst in with something loud and obnoxious to announce, whatever latest tidbit of drama he’d learnt. It turned out Hunk made all his lunches himself, and eventually Keith learned to accept when Hunk offered him some, because his cooking was delicious. And Pidge was wholly and entirely obsessed with apples. She never came to lunch without one.

Really, the only thing Keith was still adjusting to was Lance.

Lance, who was almost constantly on Keith’s mind. Lance, who touched Keith all the time without thinking, grabbing his arm or wrapping an arm around his shoulder or pulling on the back of his hair, saying, “You growing this out, Mullet?”

Keith’s heart insisted on working in overdrive during any of these instances, and he was growing tired of the swarm of butterflies that’d taken up living in his stomach, in his lungs.

And Lance was way too intuitive for his own good. He always knew when the slightest thing was off with any of his friends, knowing before any of them when Hunk was having a particularly bad day, when Pidge had a migraine and needed Lance’s illegal stash of Advil. He also knew, unfortunately, when something seemed particularly _off_  about Keith. Like when he went to lunch and tried to have a normal afternoon with his friends despite his whole bladder situation having grown particularly uncomfortable at that point.

Keith had barely been able to stomach anything during lunch, the thought of putting anything else in his body when he was already desperate to empty it unfathomable. He’d had to refuse his friends’ offers of food several times, insisting that he hadn’t actually forgotten his lunch that day and just wasn’t hungry. In truth, Keith very well could’ve been hungry, but he couldn’t exactly tell when his bladder seemed to be the only thing occupying his mind.

“Hey dude, you okay?” Lance had said, having pulled him aside after the bell had rung. They’d been standing right beside the bathrooms, the loud hand-dryers making Lance have to speak up.

For the first time in his life, Keith had wished he was a girl. Then, it wouldn’t be weird if he invited his friend to come to the bathroom with him. He’d never understood that concept, really, why girls always wanted someone to accompany them to the bathroom, though Keith had never been asked to join anyone. Maybe, deep down, even way back then, everyone else had realized he wasn’t a girl either.

Or maybe he’d just never had any friends.

Either way, it would’ve been nice if he could’ve just dragged Lance along with him to the bathroom right about then. He was sure it wouldn’t feel so nerve wracking that way. Then, no one would think to question him, and anyone who did would know that he’d have Lance backing him up.

Then again, he could’ve just told Lance why he wanted company in the first place. Could’ve come out to him. But coming out was nerve-wracking, and Keith was new to passing so consistently — like, all the time consistently — and he wasn’t quite sure what he wanted to do with that yet. Part of him like it. Like, really liked it. Not having to correct people, not having to worry so much, not having to feel like everyone was staring at him, wondering about him.

But then again, there were parts of it he didn’t like. He _liked_  who he was — was comfortable in his identity, in the fact that he was trans, and keeping that information to himself almost made him feel like he was doing it because he was ashamed, which was so completely not the case. Not to mention the fact that he liked being out with his family, liked being able to talk to them comfortably about anything and everything. Several times, Keith had found himself opening his mouth to complain to Pidge during English or to Lance at lunch about how his binder was killing him or about how he was kind of enjoying having his hair on the longer side again, before his mouth would snap shut and he’d remember, _Oh yeah, they don’t know I’m trans_

Without knowing quite what he wanted to do yet, Keith had kept his mouth closed and let everyone go on believing that he was just as cisgender as the rest of them. But in that moment, Keith had found himself wanting to confess, wanting to drag Lance into the bathroom with him and have someone there to keep him from freaking out about the whole _‘using the men’s bathroom for the first time’_  thing.

Then again, maybe he should just get over his fear. Maybe he should stop torturing himself during his last block of the day, legs now crossed and hand wrapped tightly on his phone, clicking it on to check the time far too often (2:49 now). After all, no one had ever so much as questioned him or his gender. He knew, deep down, that he’d be completely fine if he were to go to the bathroom. No one would bat an eye, no one would turn a head at his presence in a place he so clearly belonged.

And yet his irrational fear gripped him, kept him planted in his seat with sweat gathering in the small of his back and under his arms. He had to pee so bad he almost wanted to cry. He’d long past stopped paying attention, the idea of even trying to concentrate and learn laughable when he couldn’t even drag his mind away from his desperation for more than a second at a time.

“Yeah,” Keith had said, answering Lance’s question — _are you okay?_  — after a swarm of thoughts had begged him to say no, to tell Lance that he had to go to the bathroom so badly and he wasn’t sure whether he’d be able to make it to the end of the day. Oh, how Keith now longed to laugh at two-hours-ago Keith. He didn’t know desperation at all.

“Are you sure? You barely talked at lunch. And you didn’t eat. And you look kind of pale.”

“I’m fine, Lance,” Keith had insisted, even while he’d twisted his fingers together in his sweatshirt pocket, a meager attempt to dislodge his thoughts from the repetitive pattern they’d found themselves in.

Lance had just frowned, his expressive eyebrows pinched together, this horribly adorable crease created right in between them. “Okay,” he’d said, still frowning. “But just so you know, you can talk to me about anything. Any time.”

Despite himself, despite the suffering he’d been in, Keith had smiled. “I’ll remember that,” he said, before the bell had rung and Keith had rushed off to class, hoping he wouldn’t be yelled at (he was).

But now, Keith was pretty sure he was going insane. It’d been barely three minutes from when he’d last checked the time and he felt like he was going to explode. Plus, he was realizing that it would be so, _so_  much worse to pee his pants than to just go into the men’s restroom, where he most likely wouldn’t even run into anyone. He could imagine it now, all the talk about the new kid who’d pissed himself, right in the middle of class.

He couldn’t even hope to keep his mind off it anymore. He’d tried everything, reciting the vocabulary he’d studied recently for a physics test and trying to name every single item on his wishlist from memory. _First kiss. Discover aliens. Operation: The Seniors Say So-Long!_  He’d added that last one after discovering what a dick Mr. Iverson was.

But he’d reached the end of what he could remember from his list far too soon, and even that hadn’t really helped him.

And so, unbidden, or maybe bidden by a part of his mind that’d decided to go on autopilot, his hand flung itself into the air with such speed and determination that his teacher stuttered to a stop. “Er — yes, Mr. Kogane?”

“Can I go to the bathroom?” Keith managed, the words past his lips before his brain could even attempt to approve of them.

“Of course,” his teacher said, gesturing him towards the door, and Keith was out of his seat and in the hallway in what felt like a blink of an eye. He was walking so fast the hallway seemed to blur around him, his hands clenched into fists by his sides. He was getting closer to the bathroom — he knew his way around the school by now, finally — and he could feel anxiety swirling in his gut. His insides seemed to be fighting each other, straining for what they desired. He wanted to be able to go home, to be in the privacy of his own bathroom and put his stupid fear off for yet another day, but even more he wanted to just go to the bathroom, to stop feeling so uncomfortable and desperate and horrible.

By the time he reached the bathroom, his bladder had overridden his anxiety, and he didn’t even pause before shoving the door open. It was blessedly empty, which made Keith thankful that at least one thing was going right, and he burst into a stall with the greatest urgency he could ever remember bursting into a stall with.

Afterwards, Keith couldn’t remember feeling quite so relieved ever before in his life. He washed his hands with a proud kind of vigor, nervous excitement seeming to thrum through him. It was like he’d had a block in his mind, a horrible irrationality keeping him from using the men’s bathroom, and he’d broken through the barrier with the force of his desperation alone.

In the mirror, Keith could see himself smiling, a stupid little grin present on his face. He dried his hands and pulled out his wishlist, luckily having a little stub of a pencil in his pocket as well, and crossed off ‘ _use the men’s restroom._ ’ Still grinning, he stepped towards the door, reaching out for the handle just as it was yanked open.

Immediately, anxiety exploded throughout him like a bomb.

“Oh, hey dude!”

And dissipated just as quickly. It was _Lance_ , of all people.

“Hey,” Keith managed, having shoved the remnants of his anxiety to the back of his mind. As discreetly as he could, he tucked his list back into his pocket, though Lance’s eyes tracked the movement. He looked back up at Keith, who kept his face stoic. This wasn’t the first time Lance hadn’t caught a glimpse of his wishlist since he’d first seen it, and by now he definitely knew it wasn’t a grocery list, but he’d had the good grace not to say anything about it.

And then, because Lance was Lance and he could dissipate tension as easily as anything, he said, “Out of my way, I’ve gotta piss like a sailor!” before pushing past Keith.

“That is _so_  not the saying.”

“Whatever, dude! I swear to God, Mrs. Z’s a sadist — she doesn’t let us leave in the middle of class even if it’s an emergency.”

Keith laughed, as much out of relief as a reaction to Lance’s words, as he shoved the door open. “I’ll see you later, Lance.”

“Bye!”

For a moment, he just stood there in the hallway, feeling like a changed man. And then he realized he was being ridiculous and awkward — especially if Lance were to come out of the bathroom in the next minute and see him just standing there, as if he was waiting for him.

Assured that he would be embarrassed if that were to happen, Keith turned and hurried back to class, almost unable to believe he’d let himself suffer for so long over something that had turned out to be ultimately not a big deal. Despite this, Keith still felt maybe an embarrassingly amount of proud of himself. It was stupid, but he wanted to tell his friends, wanted to share his excitement with them. Instead, he texted his brother.

[14:55] Keith: You’ll never guess what I just did.

[14:55] Shiro: What??

[14:55] Keith: I used the men’s bathroom. :)

[14:55] Shiro: WHAT KEITH!!!

[14:55] Shiro: OMG

[14:55] Shiro: I’M SO PROUD OF YOU!!!

[14:55] Shiro: HOW WAS IT???

[14:56] Keith: Calm down.

[14:56] Keith: It’s not like a first kiss.

[14:56] Shiro: Shut up you wouldn’t have texted me if you weren’t as excited as I am.

[14:56] Keith: …

[14:56] Keith: It was good.

[14:56] Keith: There was no one in there at first and I bumped into Lance after.

[14:57] Shiro: I’m so proud of you :’)

[14:57] Keith: Thanks.

[14:57] Keith: Love you.

[14:57] Shiro: Awww you sap!

[14:57] Shiro: I love you too!!

By the time the last bell rang, Keith still hadn’t managed to pay attention to the rest of his class. It was true that he was no longer distracted because of how direly he needed to pee, but instead he was distracted due to his excitement, one which Shiro easily shared.

Still, he couldn’t find it in himself to care, and he felt like he was walking with an extra pep in his step as he made his way to Hunk’s car. He bumped into Pidge in the parking lot — no, literally — though only because she was doubled over her phone as she walked.

“Oh! Hey, Keith!” she said, tucking her phone into her pocket. “We’re gonna go over to Hunk’s and watch a movie, you wanna come?”

“Sure,” Keith said.

Pidge tripped, turning to look at Keith with wide, surprised eyes. “Really?!” she said.

She (and Lance and Hunk) were constantly inviting Keith to do things with them after school, but Keith had yet to accept any of their invitations. He had a variety of reasons, too. Like, at first, he’d still been half-convinced that he was intruding on their friend group, that they didn’t really want him there and were just inviting him to be nice. But then he’d started to really like them, and he’d realized that they were somehow enjoying his company as much as he was enjoying theirs, so that excuse had flown out the window. But more had followed.

Like when they invited him over for something that was going to take a long time, for which Keith reasoned he couldn’t go with them, seeing as he’d really be stretching it to wear his binder for that long. Or like when they invited him over when he was on his period (definitely rarer and lighter now, and the internet informed him that it would most likely stop eventually, but apparently it was different for every person starting T). And Keith couldn’t possibly hang out with them when he was on his period because what if they saw a tampon in their trash and wondered just where it’d come from? Assuming they knew that it wasn’t Pidge’s, anyway.

Somehow, someway, Keith had always managed to come up with an excuse to not hang out with them outside of school, as if he were personally sabotaging his own friendships. But now, he really just wanted to be with his friends. Wanted to surround himself with them and embrace his excitement, even if he couldn’t exactly tell them why he was so excited in the first place. But seriously, he’d overcome something huge for him — surely that called for some kind of celebration?

“Yeah,” Keith said now, realizing he’d left Pidge hanging, still standing there with her mouth gaping open. “I’m not busy or anything.”

“Holy shit,” Pidge said. And then she spotted someone over Keith’s shoulder, and she started jumping and waving her hands over her head. “ _Hunk_!” she called. “Hey Hunk! Keith’s coming over to watch movies!”

“Wait, really?!” Hunk said, voice much closer than Keith was expecting, due to the disproportionate volume of Pidge’s shouting.

“Yes,” Keith said, turning to look at Hunk, who was smiling broadly.

“Lance’ll be glad to hear it.”

“He will?”

Hunk’s eye twitched. “Yep!” he said kind of loudly. “Lance is all about getting the whole group together, you know?”

Keith couldn’t help smiling. That was… cute. That Lance wanted to hang out with them all at once. That he considered “the group” incomplete without Keith.

They all climbed into the car, Pidge calling shotgun despite the fact that Keith had never tried to take it before — he’d already invaded their friend group, he wasn’t about to steal the front seat too. Hunk pulled out of his spot, starting to drive towards the exit, seeing as Lance would surely reach them before they were out of the parking lot’s traffic.

And he did.

The door was ripped open as Lance propelled himself into the car, panting. His hair was in disarray and his backpack was hanging from one hand, the strap still caught in the door.

“Your door’s not closed,” Hunk informed him.

“Huugghhh,” Lance said on an exhale, before shoving the door open and pulling his strap in. “I — have — some news,” he said through pants, tilting his head back against the seat immediately afterwards. Keith could see sweat glistening on his neck. His long, smooth neck. A bead of sweat dripped down it, and Keith found himself following it with his eyes. Oh God, he was such a freak.

“Care to tell us what it is?” Pidge asked, turning around to peer at Lance from the front seat.

“When I can breathe,” Lance said. Everyone was still staring at him, and Lance was still breathing a bit heavily, but he heaved out a breath as he rolled his eyes, seeing everyone waiting expectedly. “Okay, _so_ ,” he began, sitting up and slapping his hands onto his knees. “I was in Mrs. Z’s class, right? And she’s the laziest bitch ever, old news, so she was like ‘any volunteers to take these papers up to the office for me?’ And of course there were no volunteers ‘cause no one wants to do shit.”

As Lance talked, he gestured. It was something Keith had noticed him doing a lot, as if merely saying the words wasn’t enough for him, he needed to express them through movement too. Still, he had everyone’s attention, and he knew it. He kept going. “Anyway, she was like, ‘Lance? Will you do it?’ And I was like _fine_ , whatever, you know? I can’t just say no, that doesn’t happen. So I go to the office and when I get in there, no one’s around. Like, literally no one was sitting in the front office, and I was like alright this is strange. But I had to turn in these papers so I decided to look for someone.”

Hunk hissed under his breath as he stepped on the break a bit too sharply. He’d been staring at Lance in the rear view mirror, having failed to pay attention to the parking lot as Lance was speaking. Now, he finally maneuvered through the rest of the traffic and pulled out onto the real road, gesturing for Lance to continue.

“Anyway, I went behind the counters and stuff to go down that teacher hall, I don’t know what it’s called, and I hear voices. And why would everyone have disappeared from the front office in the first place, huh? Any guesses?”

“Just tell us, dick,” Pidge snapped, glaring at Lance.

“I’ll tell you!” he continued dramatically. “They disappear _to gossip_!”

“Oh my God,” Hunk said. “What did you overhear?”

“Not much,” Lance said, immediately looking dejected. “Someone came out of another door and saw me, so I handed them Mrs. Z’s stuff. But what I _did_  hear is that there’s apparently a trans student at our school! It’s like, super-secret school official stuff — not even our teachers know, from what I heard. Just the administration.”

“Woah!” Pidge said. “Who do you think it is?”

Keith, understandably in his opinion, was freaking out. His mouth had gone completely dry, the rest of his body breaking into such vicious sweat that, had he still needed to pee, it probably would’ve taken the edge off.

“No clue,” Lance said. “But I wanna know! Like, more LGBT people at this school? Count me the fuck in.” Pidge laughed, and Keith could see Hunk’s smile in the rear view mirror. Honestly, there was no reason for him to be nervous, to be virtually terrified. Obviously this friend group was the most accepting one out there, and already he’d been debating whether he should tell them or not. But now that they knew someone at the school was trans, now that they might have their eye out for it, a deep-rooted sense of horror had sprung within Keith. Just another fear insistent on being irrational, refusing to be tamed.

“I’m sure if they wanted you to know, you would know,” Hunk said. “I bet it’s secret for a reason.”

“Yeah,” Lance sighed. “But it’s just cool, you know? I’ve talked to all kinds of LGBT people online, finding them in real life is so much harder. Plus, I have questions.”

“I’m sure whatever questions you have would be offensive,” Pidge scoffed.

“They would not!” Lance argued. “I’m just trying to broaden my circle of queer friends, thank you very much.”

“While you do that,” Hunk said, thankfully changing the subject. “Pidge, Keith, and I will be at my house, watching a movie.”

Silence. And then —

“Keith’s coming?!” Lance exclaimed, gaping first at Hunk before turning in his seat to look at Keith. “Dude! This is monumental!”

“Because I finally agreed to hang out?” Keith said, mentally patting himself on the back when he sounded completely normal. The stiffness was leaking out of his stature with the subject change, no longer feeling like he was moments away from being caught-out.

“Because this is our first _real_  group hang out sesh,” Lance corrected. “This has to be perfect! We need to pick a better movie, probably. Hunk! We need to stop at the gas station for snacks!”

Hunk snorted, but he switched into the right lane and took the next upcoming turn, pulling into a gas station. It was probably too early in the day for a bunch of teenagers to raid a gas station for soda and snacks but they did so anyway, emptying their wallets and leaving with more food than they could possibly eat.

Hunk lived not too far from there, and mere minutes later they were pulling into his driveway and piling out of the car. As Hunk unlocked the front door, Lance was already rambling about all the different movies they could watch, listing the ones Hunk owned (because of course he was somehow familiar with Hunk’s movie collection) and how the could rent any Hunk didn’t have, unless they wanted to just watch it online illegally instead.

“What about Ironman?” Lance said, standing up from where he’d ended up crouched beside the TV, examining the bookshelf of DVDs.

“I watched that too recently,” Pidge said, at the same time that Keith said, “Never seen it.”

Lance’s mouth dropped open. “Keith,” he said seriously. “You’ve never seen Ironman?”

“I’ve never really seen any of the Marvel movies. Except, like, Spider-man,” he said consideringly. Lance had a hand clutched to his heart. He stumbled forward and grabbed Keith’s shoulders.

“Keith Christopher Kogane,” he began.

“That’s not my middle name.”

“Keith Eunice Kogane.”

“Definitely not.”

“You gonna tell me it?” Lance demanded, and Keith shook his head, his lip pulled up in a smirk.

“Keith Asshole Kogane,” Lance said. “One day very, very soon, you and I are going to have the most epic of movie marathons.”

“Okay,” Keith said on a laugh, and Lance nodded importantly.

“Good. Now — what should we watch?” He said this to the room, looking between his three friends for suggestions.

They ended up watching Die Hard, what Lance claimed was a classic and what Pidge couldn’t argue her way out of, having turned down almost every suggestion made. Lance claimed she didn’t even want to watch movie at this point, which finally had her caving.

While Hunk disappeared into the kitchen to make popcorn of his “own special concoction” (“He just adds M&Ms, I swear,” Lance had said, seeing Keith’s wary expression), the rest of them piled onto the couch. Keith had taken the seat by the arm, and Pidge had copied him on the other side of the couch, leaving space big enough for one person to sit comfortably in between them. Instead, Hunk and Lance both shoved themselves in there, meaning that Lance was pressed entirely against Keith’s side.

Lance didn’t seem to find anything wrong with this. He was a touchy person as it was, constantly finding excuses to pull his friends into his side, to grab their hands and squeeze their arms and wind himself around them. It’d taken a lot of getting used to on Keith’s part, having never been a super touchy person to begin with, but he didn’t mind so much when it was Lance. Probably because he was in the midsts of developing a huge-ass crush on him, something which refused to slow down no matter what Keith did.

He’d never really had a crush like this before. He’d of course thought guys were cute, had had a few that’d caught his attention, but he’d never experienced something like this. Especially seeing as he was with Lance nearly every day, every little thing he said and did was just fuel to the fire of Keith’s feelings. It was horrible.

“Everyone _shh_!” Lance shouted as the opening scene began, despite the fact that no one had been talking in the first place. He shifted to get more comfortable, ending up with one arm on the couch behind Keith’s shoulders, his other free to deliver the popcorn in Hunk’s lap to his mouth.

For a while, Keith sat stiffly, sure that Lance would be able to read more into it if Keith were to relax. But his muscles started to ache from how he was sitting, complaining so loudly that he could barely pay attention to the movie, so he finally gave in. He shifted slightly, slouching a little in his seat and pretending like he couldn’t hear his heart in his ears when he ended up pressed a little closer to Lance.

Lance didn’t even seem to notice, unless him grabbing a handful of popcorn (and M&Ms) and forcing it into Keith’s hand was some sort of secret code.

Still, Keith did his best to pay attention to the movie, to enjoy the snacks and the company and not just think about Lance the whole time, about how warm he was and how often he seemed to fidget, at one point flinging a leg over Hunk’s thigh and leaning more firmly against Keith in the process.

Alright, so maybe Keith didn’t do a very good job. He was just hoping no one would try to discuss the plot of the movie with him afterwards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> keith's movie experience ??? mine. i just recently started binging all the marvel movies and i'm In Love. had to find a way to slip it in there somehow
> 
> (also i've never seen die hard. that was just stolen straight from jake peralta)


	4. have a sleepover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith slouched in his seat, shoving his hands into his pockets, and felt his entire body go stiff, a shiver creeping down his spine.
> 
> His wishlist was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey!! a slight warning for this chapter is the description of an anxiety attack, although keith doesn't know that's what it is, so he doesn't say so in as many words

Keith was pretty sure his friends were onto him.

Again, the thought of coming out to them wasn’t actually that bad. He knew his friends, knew they’d accept him and be happy for him and love him just the same.

He also knew that the pressure of coming out, especially with the time-limit that came with having genius friends, was absolutely abhorrent. If he didn’t come out on his own terms soon enough, he figured it was only be a matter of time before they realized it themselves.

They were already on the lookout for the trans kid in school, thanks to Lance’s eavesdropping. The topic constantly came up at lunch, seeing as both Lance and Pidge liked to come up with theories about who it could be. Keith always felt himself clamming up during these conversations. He could hardly believe his friends knew someone was trans and couldn’t automatically tell it was him.

But it wasn’t just because of that that Keith felt like he might end up giving something away. He was sure there were too many little hints dropped around, parts and pieces they could pick up and put together and finally realize that it was Keith they were looking for.

Like when Lance had tried to get them all to go to the pool. It hadn’t closed yet, thanks to it still being early enough in the year that the pool still considered it to be summer, and Lance had gone on and on about how they needed to use the pool while they still could. Pidge and Hunk had readily agreed, but Keith, for obvious reasons, had not.

“Come on!” Lance had begged, hanging off Keith’s arm and trying to convince him to just go to the pool with them already. “It won’t be as fun without all of us!”

Lance had continued in that vein for a while. He was obviously used to his begging and pestering getting him places, and Keith could see why. He’d almost wanted to agree just to get Lance to shut up, but he _couldn’t_. He couldn’t go to the pool and Lance couldn’t possibly convince him to change him mind.

In the end, Keith had snapped at Lance. He’d regretted it immediately, the way Lance’s eyes had widened, the way he’d taken a step back and seemed to shrink in on himself. Keith had apologized, guilt immediately flooding in where annoyance had previously resided. Still, he’d gotten out of going to the pool, at least.

There were other little things that Keith was afraid were going to give him away, too. Like that time Lance had given Hunk what he’d called a “purple nurple”, where he’d reached out and twisted Hunk’s nipple through his shirt. Keith had felt his entire body stiffen, his eyes going wide at the weirdest display of friendship he’d ever seen, where Hunk was clutching his chest and groaning and Lance was laughing, leaning against his shoulder as he did.

Pidge was safe from receiving the dreaded purple nurple, obviously, seeing as she was a girl. Lance would never dream of doing that to _her_.

But what if he one day decided to do it to Keith?! Keith wasn’t even sure what had prompted it happening to Hunk in the first place, he’d just zoned into it happening. If Lance ever tried to do it to Keith, Keith would freak out. Plus, his binder was so tight that Lance would no doubt be unable to pinch his nipple anyway. This would raise a lot of questions, which in turn would provide a lot of answers, some of which Keith wasn’t sure he was ready _to_  provide yet.

It _had_  occurred to Keith that maybe he was being a little paranoid. Perhaps everything only seemed so obvious to him because he actually knew the truth. But he couldn’t help being paranoid, couldn’t help being scared of having to come out before he felt completely ready. He wanted to do it on his own terms, in his own way.

All of this was kind of floating around in Keith’s mind near-constantly. One moment he’d be paying attention in class and the next his thoughts would somehow wander towards everything he was worrying about and he’d feel himself stiffen anxiously.

Still, there were times when it was kind of cleared from his head. Sure-fire distractions that had him concentrating on other things. Like turning the corner and seeing Iverson yelling at Lance.

Keith had come into school late today. He’d had a long overdue doctor’s appointment (everything seemed to be going well) and he’d gotten dropped off at school afterwards. It was half-way through second block, meaning lunch was thankfully creeping closer and closer. It also meant that Lance was supposed to be in class, not getting chewed out by Iverson for probably no reason.

“How many times do I have to ask you —”

“I already told you,” Lance snapped. Keith could see the line of tension in his body even at this distance, and he saw the way Iverson straightened up at the tone in Lance’s voice.

“Don’t you dare raise your voice at me, McClain.”

“I didn’t —”

“Detention,” Iverson said, glowering. “For being in the halls without a pass and talking back to a teacher.”

“That’s so unfair,” Lance bemoaned, but Iverson leaned close and said something quietly to him, something that made Lance’s expression fall, even as his hands curled into fists at his sides.

“Understood?”

“Peachy,” Lance muttered. With that, Iverson turned around and disappeared back into his classroom. Lance turned, looking downtrodden, and noticed Keith, his eyes widening. He immediately started off in his direction.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, his voice low. He cast a careful glance back towards Iverson’s classroom, as if he’d reappear to tell Lance off for not being in class yet.

“Just got out of my doctor’s appointment,” Keith said. “What did Iverson say to you?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Lance said dismissively. “But you should get to class if you don’t have a pass. Otherwise you might get detention after school today.”

Keith winced sympathetically. “That sucks.”

“Well, what are you gonna do?” Lance sighed, defeated.

Keith smiled. “Operation: The Seniors Say So-Long?”

This made Lance laugh, his eyes lighting up as it seemed to surprise its way out of him, if the way he slapped a hand over his mouth immediately afterward was any indication. It made Keith’s insides warm. Lance was always making everyone laugh; it always felt like an accomplishment whenever Keith returned the favor.

“Ugh, okay,” Lance said. “I really gotta get back to class. I’ll see you at lunch!” He held out his hand, which Keith fumbled his way through one of those douchey handshakes with, and then Lance was gone, speed-walking off down the hallway in order to get back to class before he got in even more trouble.

Keith continued on to his own class, a smile persistent on his lips.

—

Keith’s good mood didn’t last. Well, it lasted for a short while. Through the rest of the class that was already half-way over when Keith arrived and the class following it. It even lasted through the majority of lunch. It was hard not to be in a good mood when he was with his friends.

Still, that all changed _after_  lunch.

As usual, Lance was walking him to his next class, seeing as it was on the way to his own. Keith’s hands were shoved into the pockets of his leather jacket, the corner of his wishlist tickling his knuckles.

“I’m just saying,” Lance was saying, the corner of his mouth pulled up and his eyes alight with joy and mischief. He looked like this a lot, both when he was telling stories and teasing Keith. His hand was raised in the air as he spoke, which turned out to be a good thing. Before them in the hall, two guys were yelling at each other in louder and louder voices, and suddenly, it broke out in a fight. One guy shoved the other, who shoved back, and one of the guys was shoved into Keith, who yanked his hands out of his pockets in an attempt to catch himself as he fell to the ground.

He was on the ground for just a second when Lance’s already extended hand was pulling him back up. Lance picked up something — had he dropped his phone? — before he was pulling Keith back, away from the fighting students. Teachers were yelling, and one administration member stepped in and shoved them apart, yelling for them to “knock it off!”

“You okay?” Lance said, looking at Keith intently.

“Yeah,” Keith said. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Good,” Lance said. “C’mon.” He dropped Keith off at his classroom, the hallway incident already drifting from their minds, and Keith went to go sit at his desk. He hadn’t realized people actually _fought_  at schools. He’d always thought that was more of a movie thing. And something that would take place in the parking lot, if it were even to go down.

Keith slouched in his seat, shoving his hands into his pockets, and felt his entire body go stiff, a shiver creeping down his spine.

His wishlist was gone.

He jumped to his feet, spinning in a circle and checking all around him. He shoved his hands back into his pockets, just to make sure, and even patted his jean pockets, as if he’d put it in there at some point.

He tried to remember when he’d last had it, but was sure it’d been in his jacket pocket. Then, with dread creeping into his stomach, he remembered falling in the hallway. Could it have fallen out of his pocket?

Trying to calm down, trying to stop sweating in a sudden panic, Keith rushed to the front of the room.

“Excuse me,” he said to his teacher. “I think I left my phone at lunch. Can I go —”

“Be quick,” his teacher said, and Keith breathed a sigh of relief, turning and rushing out of the room, back through the now-empty halls. His eyes were peeled, scanning the entire hallways for his list.

But when he got back to where the fight had occurred he found nothing. He felt like his heart had crawled up into his throat, and he spun in a circle, looking so hard his eyes hurt. He felt like he was going to cry, his face and eyes hot as he realized he’d lost his most vulnerable possession.

God, where could it be? Did someone pick it up and throw it away?

Or, fuck, did someone pick it up and _read it_?! There was nothing connecting him to the paper, no way of anyone knowing it was his without having seen it fall out of his pocket. Anyone reading it would be privy to his deepest secrets and wishes, but at least they wouldn’t know whose it was.

Fuck. _Fuck_. Keith was shaking, his hands trembling by his sides as he spun around again, as if doing so would suddenly reveal the piece of paper that meant so much to him.

His chest felt tight, and he felt like he couldn’t breathe. What was this? What was happening?

Could it be a heart attack? But the pain wasn’t necessarily on the left side of his chest… And wasn’t his arm supposed to hurt, or something?

Unsure what was happening or what he should do, Keith spun in another circle, panicked eyes flickering around for some kind of answer. He spotted the bathrooms and rushed into men’s one. It was empty, probably because the block had only just started, and Keith shoved his way into a stall and locked it behind him, dropping onto the toilet fully clothed.

He wrapped his arms around his middle, shivering and shaking and unable to breathe. His breaths kept shuddering out of him before they’d had a chance to do anything for him, to fill his lungs and blood with oxygen, escaping him far too soon.

Fuck, was he dying? Was he going to suffocate?

He dropped his head between his knees, his hands coming up to clutch at the hair at the nape of his neck. His breaths were still shuddering in and out of him. He tried to control it, tried to make himself breath slower. Tears were rolling down his cheeks.

It took forever. Keith had no idea how much time had passed before he managed to catch his breath again, before he seemed to gain control of his body, his limbs loosening. He felt sore all over, and suddenly exhausted.

He stumbled to his feet. Had anyone come into the bathroom at all? He felt like he could barely remember anything that’d transpired since he’d realized he didn’t have his wishlist.

He walked back to class on shaky legs, still feeling as if breathing was a luxury. What if that… _whatever-it-was_  happened to him again? Why had it happened in the first place?

“Mr. Kogane,” his teacher said sternly when Keith stepped back into the classroom. Keith glanced up, his eyes widening.

“Um, sorry I took so long,” he muttered.

“Took so long?” his teacher repeated, sounding incredulous. “It’s been nearly twenty minutes.”

Keith’s mouth dropped open. He’d been gone _that long?_

“I didn’t mean to —”

“No excuses, Mr. Kogane,” she said sharply. “You can think about your actions in detention,” she said, reaching onto her desk to grab a pink slip, which she thrusted at him. Keith took it, his cheeks the very same color. He avoided eye contact with everyone else in the room and took his seat, sinking in it as low as he could.

He just wanted to know what the fuck had just happened to him. And where his list was. God, he wanted it back so badly. Keith closed his eyes, unable to concentrate and using all his strength to keep from crying again.

—

Keith had never had detention before. This was probably obvious, seeing as middle schoolers didn’t really get detentions, and Keith hadn’t been in a public school since then. He made his way towards the room where detention was being held cautiously. More than anything, he just wanted to go home. He wanted to tell Shiro everything that had happened so that Shiro would hug him without Keith having to ask. He wanted to tell Sherry about the weird breathing thing that’d happened to him and have her know exactly what it was. He wanted to curl up in his bed and not think for the rest of the weekend.

He was so preoccupied with all these thoughts, the fact that he’d lost his wishlist and maybe had a heart attack, that he’d completely forgotten that Lance had detention himself. He remembered when he walked in, however, seeing Lance slouched in a desk at the back of the room, looking beyond bored.

Keith’s heart lifted just the tinniest amount. Lance was an expert at making people feel better; just knowing he’d be with him for the next hour made having to wait until he could be home and cry just a little bit better.

But as Keith got to the back of the classroom, he noticed a familiar piece of paper folded up on Lance’s desk, sitting there almost innocently.

Keith’s stomach dropped to his toes.

His hands started shaking again, and Keith clenched them tightly, terrified that another bout of whatever-the-fuck was going to descend on him.

“Lance,” he said lowly, and Lance’s head jerked up. He smiled for a moment, as if forgetting the damning evidence he had sitting on his desk. But maybe he saw how still Keith was standing, or how scared and angry and everything-in-between he looked, because Lance’s eyes glanced down to the desk before up at Keith, where they widened.

“Keith,” he began, sitting up hastily. “I can ex —”

“Did you read it?” Keith interrupted. His throat felt dry. His eyes felt hot. He felt pathetic and angry and embarrassed and _tired_.

“Keith —”

“Did. You. Read. It?”

Lance swallowed. “I didn’t know —”

Keith’s heart dropped. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, and shook his head. “You read it,” he practically whispered.

“Yes.”

And then, suddenly, all the emotions were wiped out of his body. It was perfect, emotionless bliss. No more anger. No more fear. No more sadness. Just… empty.

Keith knew he should probably feel terrified. Lance knew his secret now, after all. Or maybe he should feel angry. Lance had invaded his privacy, and he had known he was invading it. He’d seen Keith writing on his wishlist several times — he knew it was a private piece of paper, whatever it was. Keith knew he should be feeling _something_ , but he accepted this nothingness for what it was. At least he wasn’t shaking. Wasn’t going through another one of those shaking, crying, can’t breathe-ing attacks.

He turned abruptly, crossing the classroom and heading to the exact opposite side. There were a couple other students dotted around the room, most of them closer to the front. Keith was going to get as far away from Lance as he could.

“Keith —”

The detention teacher finally seemed to realize that conversation was happening, what with Lance’s no raised voice. He glanced up, squinting through his glassed towards the back of the room.

“No talking,” he chided.

 _No problem,_  Keith thought. He dropped his bag onto the floor next to his desk and slid into the seat, slouching as low as he could. He’d already texted his parents about not being home on time, and they were sending Shiro to pick him up afterward. Keith only needed to be here for another hour, and then he’d get to go home.

Except Keith’s emotionless state didn’t stay.

Minutes later, they started creeping back in, and Keith wished he could go back, wished he could remain unaffected by them.

The anger was back. The sorrow. His brain seemed to keep flip flopping, determined to curse Lance out of existence in one moment while just wanting to be home in his bed the next.

Detention dragged by, and Keith was all too aware of the eyes burning holes into the back of his head. At one point, his phone buzzed in his lap. He could see Lance’s name on the screen, and his message was long enough that it trailed off into dots on his lock screen, but Keith didn’t bother to unlock it. He turned his phone off.

It felt like hours had passed by the time the detention was finally up, and Keith was the first one out the door. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets, unsettling without the usual presence of his wishlist. Anger flared as he realized it was still in Lance’s possession. He should’ve at least grabbed it back when he’d had the chance, fuck.

And of course Lance followed him. Because he was persistent, and an asshole, and Keith hated his entire guts.

“Keith,” Lance said urgently, seconds before his hand curled around Keith’s elbow. Keith wrenched his arm out of Lance’s grasp so hard something in his shoulder twinged. Keith had to stop himself from reaching up to rub it with a groan.

“ _What_?” he snapped, spinning around to glare at Lance. The doors were so close. He could almost taste freedom, could almost reach Shiro’s car which was surely outside by now, seeing as he was done with his shift at the mechanic shop.

“I’m sorry,” Lance said emphatically. “I — I shouldn’t have read it Keith, I’m _sorry_. This doesn’t change anything —”

“This changes everything,” Keith snapped. It was dramatic, definitely, but it felt good to say, especially when he was angry. Plus, it did change some things. It changed Keith’s ability to choose when he wanted to come out, and how, and where. It changed his ability to stay in the closet, to continue to experience having people think he was cis, if he wanted to. It changed his _control_  of the situation.

Lance’s expression fell. “Keith —”

“Did you pick it up when it fell out of my pocket?” Keith hissed. “Did you intentionally not tell me about finding it?”

Lance didn’t answer, but the expression on his face said everything. Keith continued. “I realized it wasn’t in my pocket when I got to class. And when I went back for it and it wasn’t anywhere to be found…” Keith didn’t even know how to explain what had happened to him. He didn’t know how to describe his not-heart-attack. He shook his head. “I couldn’t breathe,” he settled for saying. “I couldn’t think. I — fuck. I just want to go home,” he said, exhausted again. He turned around, walking towards the main doors with precision in his steps.

“I’m sorry,” Lance said again, hurrying after him. The words felt like dead weights to Keith at this point.

“Just leave me alone,” Keith said tiredly.

“At least let me return this,” Lance said quietly. Keith halted, spinning around stiffly to see Lance holding out his hand, Keith’s wishlist held carefully between his fingers. Keith didn’t hesitate. He snatched it, shoved it into his pocket, and turned and hurried down the stairs, Shiro’s car idling by the curb. Keith slammed the door shut behind him.

“Isn’t that one of your friends?” Shiro said, peering past Keith towards Lance, still standing at the top of the stairs. “Does he need a ride?”

“No,” Keith snapped. “Just drive.”

And then, finally, he couldn’t hold it in anymore. Tears streamed down his cheeks. He was silent as he cried, and it took nearly half the drive before Shiro even realized he was crying, gasping and demanding to know what was wrong. Keith spilled it all on the rest of the way home, telling the story in between broken sobs. By the time they got back home, Keith felt entirely wrung out. He climbed the stairs before either of his moms could realize he was home and collapsed into bed fully clothed to sleep.

—

When Keith woke up, his chest ached. It was stupid and irresponsible of him to fall asleep in his binder, but he’d been so tired he hadn’t even thought about it. With a groan, Keith sat up and struggled out of his clothes, pulling a big sweatshirt on instead.

A glance at the clock revealed it was only 8:00, meaning Keith had slept for nearly four hours. He was glad he hadn’t slept through the night. His chest would really be killing him, then. And he’d have to take off binding for the day as a consequence, too.

Instead, he just felt slightly in pain, now that he was relieved of the pressure. And groggy. And hungry.

His mouth tasted horrible, classic after having taken a nap, but Keith figured a glass of water and whatever dinner he’d missed would make up for it. No doubt Shiro had shared Keith’s tragic story with their parents by now. Hopefully, he’d remain unbothered in his trip downstairs, allowed to stew in his self-pity and sadness.

Keith made it to the kitchen un-interrupted. Tired and too lazy to bother looking for whatever dinner he’d missed, much less go through all the effort of heating it up and stuff, Keith pulled out a cup from a cupboard. He filled it with Froot Loops, added milk, and ate his meal in sips. He was just about to head back up to his room to drink his cereal and watch some sitcom in an attempt to feel better, when someone walked into the kitchen.

Keith froze.

Hunk, now standing there, also froze.

“Hey Keith,” he said, smiling tentatively. Keith’s mouth was hanging open, his hand clenching his cereal cup with sudden fervor. Panic seemed to explode all throughout his body. And then he realized he wasn’t wearing his binder and wondered if Hunk could tell. Keith, pretty thankfully, had never had too much of a chest, but that didn’t negate the fact that he _did_  have one, one that he would very much like to not have, thank you very much.

He was used to wandering around his house in oversized sweatshirts, perfectly comfortable and at home around his family, but this was _Hunk_. Speaking of, why the fuck was he here?

“Uh,” Keith managed in response. His body felt stiff. And his face felt red. Where the fuck was Shiro?

“Hunk!” a very familiar and _unwelcome_  voice called from the living room. “Are you getting me a water or what?”

“Yeah,” Hunk called back hastily, and he stepped further into the kitchen, stepping towards the cabinets and taking out a cup like he owned the place.

“What…” Keith managed. “What are you _doing_  here?”

“I’m not really sure,” Hunk admitted. “Lance said something about making you upset, and needing to make it up to you, and he talked to your brother, somehow? I don’t know how he has his number, honestly. But an emergency cheering up sleepover was formed, and here we are.”

“Sleepover?” Keith muttered, trying his best to take in whatever the hell Hunk had just said. And wait, he “wasn’t sure”? Did that mean Lance hadn’t told him? He didn’t know…?

“Yeah,” Hunk said. “It’s tradition. Doesn’t really matter how you’re upset, either. Once, Lance’s girlfriend dumped him right before homecoming. That was two-day sleepover.”

Keith watched as Hunk filled up the glass of water, presumably for Lance. “Listen,” Keith finally said. “I like… appreciate the sentiment, or whatever, but I really just want to be alone right now, so…”

“Mm-mm,” Hunk said, shaking his head. The cup was full, and he took a sip. “I promise you’ll feel better after our cheer-up sleepover. Plus, Shiro seemed to think it was a good idea too.”

“Shiro’s a traitor,” Keith muttered, though apparently not quietly enough, seeing as Hunk laughed.

“Come on,” he said. “We have a bunch of cheer-up activities lined up. Plus, Pidge is getting way too much black-mail material with all stories your moms are telling.”

“ _What_?” Keith said, going wide-eyed. He followed Hunk into the living room without hesitation. No one noticed their entrance at first, and Keith tuned into the story being told.

“— Of course, he didn’t realize it wasn’t me he was talking to, I guess this woman looked the same from the back, and he said, _he said_  —”

“ _That’s enough_ ,” Keith loudly interrupted, and all the heads in the room turned to look at him. Shiro shot him a guilty smile. He seemed to be begging for forgiveness and insisting that this would be good for Keith in one expression alone. Keith vowed to kill him later.

“Oh, come on, Keith,” Deb said. “You know the next part of the story’s the best part.”

“For you, maybe,” Keith scoffed.

“Alright,” Deb sighed, rolling her eyes good-naturedly. “I guess I’ll let you have your friends, then. Is your room clean?”

“Yes,” Keith muttered. He gestured for his friends to follow him upstairs, having managed to avoid looking at Lance all this time. He scooped his binder off the floor the second he was in the room, muttering a, “One second,” as he disappeared into his bathroom to unfortunately pull it back on, silently apologizing to his ribs.

When he came back out of the bathroom, it was to see his friends examining his room. They were all standing in the middle of it awkwardly, spinning in place and looking over it all, scanning the little trinkets he had and the posters on his walls. Keith felt suddenly self conscious, and he crossed his arms. Lance was staring at him almost pleadingly.

Something in Keith shuddered, preparing to break. Keith was good at holding grudges. There were people from middle school that he knew he’d still glare at if he ever ran into them in public, and there were old foster parents that he cursed whenever they happened to venture through his thoughts.

But Keith had never held a grudge against a friend before.

He knew he had the right to be angry. To want to glare at Lance and ignore him and yell at him.

But then, he knew Lance didn’t have malicious intent. It was a dick move, for sure, reading his wishlist. He also knew what a drug curiosity was, and while he wished Lance had fought against it, he couldn’t completely begrudge him for reading his list. He could see himself doing the same exact thing, in Lance’s shoes.

Plus… Well, it wasn’t like Lance wasn’t apologetic. He’d tried to apologize in detention, had even sent Keith a text that he’d still yet to read. And now… Well, he’d organized a comfort sleepover. Keith had never even had a sleepover before. It was on his stupid wishlist. Both anger and embarrassment twisted in Keith’s gut momentarily as he realized that Lance had probably seen that wish, was maybe even catering to it right now.

And then, finally, that thing inside Keith wasn’t just threatening to break — it was breaking. He just… he couldn’t stay mad at Lance. Not when Lance was looking at him like that, like he was filled with guilt and regret and wanted nothing more than to be forgiven.

Keith felt himself deflate, and he finally looked at Lance, looking at him with no anger or resentment harbored within himself. Lance’s eyebrows seemed to rise up his forehead a bit, asking a question, and Keith rolled his eyes in faux-annoyance. When he looked back at Lance, Lance had a tentative smile on his lips, and Keith let himself copy it.

“Not that I don’t love a good sleepover,” Pidge said, finally having gotten her fill of Keith’s room, “but what’s it for? Lance says it’s a comfort sleepover.”

“It is,” Keith admitted.

“And Lance is the one who upset you?” Hunk said tentatively. Lance winced. Keith nodded slightly.

“Um… yeah,” he said. “I forgive him though, so…”

Pidge frowned. “What’d he do? If you don’t mind us asking.”

“You don’t have to tell them,” Lance said immediately, looking towards Keith, but Keith just shook his head.

“He saw something private of mine,” Keith said slowly. “I was upset because… He found out I was trans.”

There was a moment of silence in the room, during which Keith’s cheeks slowly grew pink, before everyone seemed to break out of their trances.

“Keith!” Hunk exclaimed, the first to react. “Thank you for telling us,” he said, rushing forward and pulling Keith into a hug, one so tight it crushed all the air out of him. “We love you,” Hunk said, rubbing one of his massive hands up and down Keith’s back.

“Back at’cha,” Keith said breathlessly.

Pidge was next, weaseling into Keith’s arms the second Hunk stepped back. “Can’t believe you had to sit through all those talks about us guessing who it was,” she muttered, sounding guilty. “I'm sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Keith said immediately. Pidge tightened her arms around him for a moment, before stepping back again.

“You’re awesome,” she said, and a self-conscious smile spread across Keith’s face. That was before he was tugged into Lance’s arms, whose hug almost rivaled Hunk’s, his face buried in Keith’s neck as he squeezed him tight.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” he said, his words reverberating against Keith’s neck, making goosebumps rise all along his arms. “I’m the worst. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Keith said. His cheek rested against Lance’s head. He wondered if he’d ever had a hug this good before. “Um. I kind of wanted to tell you guys soon anyway, so.”

“Ugghhhh!” Lance groaned, still sounding horribly guilty. He tightened his arms around Keith’s middle, if possible, and leaned backwards, lifting Keith’s feet into the air momentarily. When Keith was finally set back down, he stumbled out of Lance’s grip. He’d rarely been touched so much all at once before and was feeling a little overwhelmed.

“You gonna ask Keith a bunch of inappropriate questions now?” Pidge said sarcastically. She was lounging back on Keith’s bed. When the hell had that happened?

“No!” Lance exclaimed, embarrassed. He was probably remembering that day in the car after his initial eavesdropping, all the questions he’d said he would ask. Lance turned towards Keith, in a panic. “I swear, I won’t!” he said desperately.

Keith laughed. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind if you had a couple questions,” he said, grinning. And… it _was_  nice to talk about all this. To know he wasn’t hiding anything. To know his friends still loved him so much. He felt light, almost giddy.

And the sleepover part was fun too.

They really did have a bunch of cheer-up activities planned, though Keith was already cheered up by the time they got to them. His Froot Loops had gone soggy in all the commotion, though luckily his friends had come prepared with snacks (“And good thing! Who the hell eats cereal out of a cup, Keith?”).

Besides that, there were plenty of other things they did. Lance had brought cards, and they played this one game that involved a lot of slapping, ending in arguments and rock-paper-scissors and Keith having a red hand, because he went in for the slap every time, as did everyone else.

Before bed, they set up a movie on the TV in Keith’s room, courtesy of Hunk’s DVD collection once again. Lance had held up a stack of DVDs at Keith and winked. The one on top had looked like Iron Man, and Keith was pretty sure Lance had snuck them into his house for them to watch another day.

As they’d turned on the movie, they’d also set up their beds. Keith had lugged a bunch of sleeping bags and pillows and blankets into his room to make a bed on the floor, and standing next to it, he’d said, “One of you guys can sleep in my bed with me, the other two get this floor bed.”

“ _I call real bed!_ ” Lance had exclaimed, jumping into the bed in order to secure his claim. And that was how Keith ended up leaning against the wall next to Lance as Pidge and Hunk leaned against the bed, sitting on the floor. The movie was loud enough that they could whisper without disturbing Hunk and Pidge, which they had taken complete advantage of. The movie was accompanied by a multitude of jokes between the two of them, who snickered as often as they actually talked.

“Hey Keith?” Lance whispered, a little more than half-way through the movie. Pidge seemed to have fallen asleep, and her body was lilting closer and closer towards Hunk’s shoulder with every passing minute. Both Keith and Lance were waiting with baited breath for her to finally end up leaning against Hunk, at which point black-mail material would be accumulated.

“Yeah?”

“Um, I have a question. But you can just ignore it if you want.”

“What is it?” Keith asked, and Lance turned towards him slightly, his cheeks noticeably pink even in the dark of the room, illuminated only by the movie.

“Um.” He swallowed. “Have you had like… surgery?” he asked, gesturing vaguely to his chest. “Is that really rude to ask? I’m sorry. You can ignore me if you want. You can _kill me_  if you want.”

Keith huffed out a laugh, feeling vaguely embarrassed as well. “Um. You probably shouldn’t ask like, anyone that,” he said, feeling his shoulders climb towards his ears. “But I haven’t had it, no.”

A crease appeared between Lance’s eyebrows. “So… So how come…”

“I don’t have boobs?” Keith said, cutting right to the point. Lance’s eyes widened, and he flushed viciously before nodding.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “Am I being a dick? You can ignore me.”

“It’s okay,” Keith said. “I know you’re… curious,” he said. “And you’re my friend. So I don’t mind.” Plus, Keith thought to himself, even if it was a really, really, _really_  distant, far-off possibility… Well, he liked Lance. And Lance liked guys. So there was a super, duper slim chance that maybe, _possibly_ , he and Lance could date. At which point… Well, Lance might learn a lot about him.

Not that Keith was expecting that, or anything.

“I wear a binder,” Keith explained. “It like… compresses everything.”

“Does it hurt?” Lance asked.

Keith shrugged. “Sometimes,” he lied. Right now, his ribs really did hurt, and breathing was starting to feel like more and more of an actual task. But then, he didn’t really know when he was supposed to take it off. Or if he’d feel weird doing so. Really, Shiro should’ve considered _that_  before telling this friends they could all sleepover.

“That sucks,” Lance said. “Does it hurt… right now?”

Keith pursed his lips. He shrugged again. “I’ve been wearing it for a while,” he hedged.

Lance frowned. “So… it _does_  hurt?”

Keith shrugged again.

“Um,” Lance said. “You know you can take it off, right? None of us’ll say anything. We can go to sleep right now, if you want.”

“I’ll take it off soon,” Keith promised. He felt kind of warm all over. He felt like he wanted to kiss Lance, which of course he didn’t do. But he felt like it.

Later, he got up to go to the bathroom, and sneakily took off his binder at the same time. When he came back, Lance was already all comfy under his blankets, and Keith slid into the bed next to him. Before he could actually go to sleep, he grabbed his wishlist off of his bedside table, accompanied with a pen.

Lance hastily looked away.

“Don’t go acting like you haven’t seen it now,” Keith muttered, half-joking.

“I’m sorry,” Lance whined. Keith laughed, and he flipped his list over, clicking his pen triumphantly when he spotted the item he was looking for. _Have a sleepover._  And then, on the other side, written sideways up the page, he crossed off a second item. _Come out to friends._

Now finished, Keith set his wishlist back on his bedside table, trying to ignore the way he’d felt Lance’s eyes on him the entire time. He sank down into the bed and faced away from Lance so he couldn’t see Keith’s smile.

Because.

Lance was in his bed.

_Lance was in his bed._

It was hard not to giggle.

“Goodnight Keith,” Lance said. They were the last two awake.

“Night, Lance,” Keith answered.

A moment of silence.

“I’m sorry. Again.”

“Shut up,” Keith muttered. “I’m not mad anymore. Goodnight.”

A pause. “Goodnight.”

Keith closed his eyes. It was still hard not to smile. Also, he could feel the warmth of Lance behind him, in the blanket surrounding him. It was hard to fall asleep, as aware of Lance’s presence as he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed!!! pls feed me w comments and tell me what you thought. also!! if you want to talk about the chapter or klance or voltron or anything, hmu on my tumblr!! i'm @jilliancares there!
> 
> oh yeah also, if anyone has any suggestions for wishes for keith to have, feel free to comment em!! i have Big Ones for later on, but i'm kind of running out of the little ones


	5. have my first kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Panicking, Lance decided to keep doing it. He had to act like it was no big deal now that Keith was waking up. Right? Otherwise it’d be really weird, if he abruptly pulled away and laid there stiffly, Keith still half on top of him.
> 
> So Lance kept petting Keith’s head. And Keith kept doing nothing to stop this. In fact, Lance was pretty sure Keith was nudging his head back against his fingers, subtly turning it for Lance to move to another part of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know, the events in this chapter weren’t supposed to take place so soon, but i woke up at 5am, had a great time watching the season, and all this happened, so… happy voltron day!

Lance was used to waking up slowly.

For school, he had about six alarms set up because it wasn’t unlikely for him to sleep through the first four and snooze the last two. On weekends, he slept for as long as he was capable. This meant locking the door before he fell asleep (in order to keep his younger siblings out) and hanging blankets up over his windows, so that not even the morning light would rouse him. At this point, Lance was practically a pro at sleeping in.

But for once, he found himself waking up _fast_. None of that slipping in an out of sleep, none of that rolling over for another thirty minutes in a new position. Just sleeping one moment, and then — _bam_! Awake.

Lance blamed Keith.

Because he went from sleeping to wakefulness in the span of a second, and in that same second he became instantly aware of the fact that despite the rather roomy full-sized bed they were lying in, he and Keith were pressed right up against each other. Realizing this did something weird and painful to Lance’s heart, which he tried to ignore. It wasn’t that out of the ordinary for two people to end up cuddling after sleeping in the same bed. It was probably only natural to gravitate towards another warm body, and Lance had woken up pressed against Hunk about a million times before and had never freaked out about it.

But then again, Keith wasn’t Hunk.

Keith was the guy Lance had been crushing on for a while now. Like, since he’d first laid eyes on him.

Keith, who would probably never give Lance a chance, now that he’d gone and betrayed his trust like he had the day before. Just reminding himself of it had his mood dropping again. He hated feeling this way, so horribly guilty and mad at himself, his entire being seemingly weighed down by his emotions. He’d tried so hard to rectify his mistake, and it sure _seemed_  like Keith had forgiven him, but Lance doubted Keith would ever truly forget what he had done. He doubted he’d ever spare an ounce of trust on Lance again.

Lance knew he couldn’t blame Keith. He’d feel the same way if someone had gone and taken a look at his most private possession, though in the moment Lance hadn’t been able to control himself. It wasn’t just the curiosity that seemed to continuously tingle under his skin, reignited whenever he caught sight of what he now knew was Keith’s wishlist — it was also because of what Iverson had said to him.

—

/ _Lance’s heart sank as the student at the front of the room called his name, looking up from the pink pass they were holding. Most people were lucky enough to be called to the guidance counselor for class scheduling or other bullshit like that when they were summoned by the Pink Pass, but for Lance, it was always the same._

_“Now or when convenient?” Lance sighed, already knowing which of the two boxes would be checked on the paper. The student glanced down._

_“Now,” they said._

_“Leave your stuff here,” Lance’s teacher instructed, and Lance slid out of his seat, slumping towards the front of the classroom and taking the pass from the student with a muttered ‘thanks’._

_Sure enough, a glance at the pass revealed Iverson’s signature at the bottom. An all-too-familiar summons to his classroom._

_Lance had been dealing with this since he’d transferred freshman year, and still he wasn’t quite used to it._

_“Come in,” Iverson said, after Lance knocked on the classroom door. The room was empty of students, seeing as Iverson didn’t actually have a class this block._

_“You wanted to see me?” Lance said, as if he didn’t already know what he was here for._

_“Do you have what I want?”_

_Lance squared his shoulders, but nodded stiffly. He’d started carrying it with him to school, even though he knew it was illegal for him to bring actual medication onto the school premises. He’d had to, though, because if he didn’t have it with him, he’d be called back to Iverson’s the next day, and Lance wanted to see him as little as possible._

_Iverson held out a small plastic bag and Lance upended his Adderall prescription into it. He’d only recently gotten it refilled, which meant it would be almost another month before he could tell his mom he needed a refill without raising suspicion. Unless he scrounged up enough cash and went back to the doctor himself, though he’d have to find a way to get there, too._

_God, Lance fucking hated Iverson. His grades were going to slip again. He wasn’t going to be able to pay attention in any of his classes, he just knew it. Fuck._

_“Thank you,” Iverson said patronizingly, and Lance bit his tongue, fighting his every instinct to keep from giving Iverson cheek. He couldn’t afford to anger him enough to make Lance’s life any worse._

_He’d always had a way of blackmailing Lance into giving him his Adderall. He wasn’t entirely sure how he knew about Lance’s prescription, but he guessed it had something to do with him being Lance’s homeroom teacher. He probably had access to his medical records, or something._

_Either way, he knew just how to control Lance, just what to say to keep him from standing up to him. Freshman year, Lance had been young and impressionable — see also: stupid. Iverson had threatened him with detentions, and one little comment about how bad those looked to colleges had had Lance caving, promising to bring in his prescription the very next day._

_And it’d continued like that. All sorts of things he’d say to get under Lance’s skin. Sophomore year, he’d somehow found out about Lance being bullied at his old school, and_ why _, and he’d threatened to out him to the whole school. But then Lance had come out Junior year on his own, and for a while, Iverson had been grasping at straws._

_Now, Lance wasn’t entirely sure what Iverson had on him. It was possible that he had nothing, but Lance wasn’t stupid enough to really think so. He wouldn’t try to blackmail Lance without actually having something to back it up, Lance just needed to figure out what it was. Figure out what he was risking if something went wrong, if he didn’t give Iverson what he wanted._

_Iverson stood up to follow Lance as he walked towards the door, and Lance tried not to let his shoulders rise up to his ears in discomfort. “When will you have more?” Iverson asked, just before Lance opened the door._

_Lance felt anger stir in his gut. Iverson had taken everything Lance had right now. And unlike Iverson, who was just trying to get some sort of high, cocaine-like effect, Lance actually_ needed _this medication. His entire being felt heavy, thinking about how Iverson was just going to end up taking from him again, probably only just after Lance had gotten his refill and started getting his grades back on track again._

_“I don’t know,” Lance said stiffly, opening the door. Iverson continued to follow after him, the door shutting behind him as he started to raise his voice._

_“How many times do I have to ask you —”_

_Lance cut him off, unable to take it anymore, his fists shaking at his sides and desperate to just swing forward and feel Iverson’s nose crunch beneath it. Instead, he snapped, “I already told you.”_

_Iverson’s expression hardened. “Don’t you dare raise your voice at me, McClain,” he threatened._

_“I didn’t —”_

_“Detention,” Iverson interrupted. “For being in the halls without a pass and talking back to a teacher.”_

_It took everything in Lance to not start crying tears of anger. God, was Iverson fucking serious? Giving Lance detention on top of taking his actual medicine?_

_“That’s so unfair,” Lance said, but then Iverson was leaning close, and Lance was stiffening automatically._

_In what was practically a whisper, Iverson said, “You will give me what I want when I want it, or else your new friend’s little secret will become public knowledge.” He leaned back. “Understood?”_

_This sent Lance reeling. New friend — did he mean Keith? And what secret? But Lance was used to this, used to Iverson having something on him, and it seemed like he did again, whatever this was. “Peachy,” Lance muttered, glaring at Iverson as he turned back into his classroom._

_Afterwards, feeling sullen and annoyed and maybe a million other things all at once, Lance turned. And immediately spotted Keith._

_His thoughts whirled, shock and panic and wariness shooting through him. How long had he been there? Had he overheard what Iverson said? Trying to gauge how much Keith knew, Lance asked, “What are you doing here?”_

_“Just got out of my doctor’s appointment,” Keith said, and Lance nodded along, just now remembering that tidbit of information. Keith had mentioned it to them the day before at lunch, telling Hunk he wouldn’t need a ride. Just a checkup, Keith had said. “What did Iverson say to you?”_

_“Doesn’t matter,” Lance said immediately, ignoring the fear still vying for his attention. Iverson had said what he’d said in a whisper. There was no way Keith had overheard. Trying to stick with the story and hurry everything along, Lance said, “But you should get to class if you don’t have a pass. Otherwise you might get detention after school today.”_

_“That sucks.”_

_“Well, what are you gonna do?” Lance sighed._

_“Operation: The Seniors Say So-Long?” Keith suggested, and Lance laughed, genuine delight replacing all the other things he’d been in the midsts of feeling. Gosh, Keith had remembered that dumb plan of Lance’s?_

_Just knowing that made Lance feel stupidly warm inside. And happy. Keith was so funny, too, in that dry, surprising way. And unlike Lance, whenever he cracked a joke, it was with a completely straight face. Lance was all grins and expectantly raised eyebrows whenever he reached the end of a particularly funny sentence, but Keith went about it an entirely different way, as if he didn’t care whether you found what he’d said funny or not._

_Finally, Lance shook his head, knowing he had to get back to class. It must’ve been nearly ten minutes since he’d left. “Ugh, okay,” he said, fighting back the (strong) part of himself that wanted to stay with Keith for as long as he could, that wanted to walk him to class and make him laugh and fight the urge to hug him goodbye when they got there. “I really gotta get back to class. I’ll see you at lunch!”_

_He caught one last glimpse of Keith’s (perfect, beautiful) smile before he was rushing off to class, hoping to not get questioned about what he’d been needed for from his teacher and classmates._

_What really sucked was that no one knew it was happening. That was kind of the point of being blackmailed, after all._

_Lance had been complaining about Iverson since Freshman year, lamenting over how he was such an incredible asshole, but that barely scratched the surface of it._

_And as if Iverson wasn’t already ruining Lance’s life enough as it was, he had to go ahead and plant an even_ stronger _seed of curiosity in Lance._

Or else your new friend’s little secret will become common knowledge.

_And fuck — that could only be Keith, right? And if his secret, whatever it was, was at jeopardy because of Lance and his actions, he at least deserved to know what secret he was fighting to keep, right?_

_Or at least, that’s how Lance rationalized his actions when he picked up Keith’s list after lunch, having watched it fallen to the ground. He’d scooped it up with entirely pure intentions, meaning to hand it right back to Keith, but people in the hallway had still been fighting and he’d shoved it into his pocket out of reflex as he’d pulled Keith out of the way._

_And then, once he’d reached his next class, he’d realized he still had it. And Iverson’s stupid words were still echoing in Lance’s ear. And the devil on his shoulder won by a long shot, and he found himself unfolding the paper under the table and almost immediately regretting it._

_At the top, written in red crayon in a child’s scrawl read_ WISHLIST _. And below it:_ get adopted _._

_The rest of the paper was filled with other items like that. All kinds of hopes and wishes that Keith — seemingly since a young age — had come up with._

~~Stop making Mrs. Riley yell at me.~~

~~Impress the old man at the bus stop.~~

~~Actually thank the bus driver for once.~~

Have a sleepover. 

~~Sit with someone at lunch.~~

~~Sit with friends at lunch.~~

~~Tell someone I’m a boy.~~

_What? Lance’s eyes seemed to scan over random items faster, following no order but jumping all around the page. He knew he should stop, knew what he was doing was wrong, knew that he was in too deep._

~~Cut my hair.~~

Have my first kiss.

~~Get a binder.~~

Grow a mustache.

~~Punch the boys who are always mean to me.~~

Meet someone else whose trans.

_Lance had already seen enough proof on this one sheet alone, but seeing it spelled out for him seemed to kick the sense right into his head, and his jaw dropped in realization. Guilt flooded in. And anger, at himself. Fuck._

_He shouldn’t have read Keith’s paper. Oh God, he really,_ really _shouldn’t have read Keith’s paper. What the fuck had he been thinking? He’d invaded Keith’s privacy in the most complete way. He had to come clean to him, had to think of how to tell him, and how to make it up to him after he did._

_These thoughts plagued Lance for the rest of the day, along with his guilt, as he made his way to detention, still unable to think of what he was going to do about all of this._

_Well, he knew_ one _thing for sure. He wasn’t going to step a toe out of line with Iverson if it was Keith’s secret he was risking. He would be obedient. He’d get the refills and report to Iverson and keep his snark down to a minimum._

_He knew how terrifying it was to be outed. To be bullied for who he was. Was that why Keith had transferred to Jefferson High in his senior year? Was that why he hadn’t told any of them?_

_With a sigh, Lance sank into a seat at the back of the classroom, Keith’s list folded in half on the table before him. He didn’t bother reading any more of the items. The thought of doing so left him feeling sick to his stomach, and instead he just stared down at the desk, feeling dead inside._

_He wouldn’t lie to Keith. Wouldn’t pretend he’d picked it up and hadn’t really read it._

_Lance settled in for a long detention, knowing he’d have to come up with a way to redeem himself during it. And return Keith’s list to him afterwards._

—

Lost in thought, Lance hadn’t realized what he’d been doing without conscious approval. He’d been too busy wading through his guilt-laden thoughts, completely unaware as his hand dove into Keith’s soft and thick hair. Maybe it made perfect sense — Keith’s head was already resting on Lance’s chest, which was a perfect position for head scratches, so maybe Lance could blame instinct alone for him playing with Keith’s hair.

Still, Lance could hardly believe he was _playing_  with _Keith’s hair_. It was something he’d thought about doing an embarrassing amount of times, and here he was, actually doing it, without having planned to do so. And it wasn’t like he could stop now — he was in way too deep. What if he stopped and Keith woke up because of it? The only viable course of action was for Lance to continue with his decision, to let the locks of Keith’s hair thread through his fingers delightfully and hope it didn’t end up with a horrible outcome.

It was Lance’s fault for letting himself zone out like that, put totally at peace by the repetitive action and the knowledge that it was _Keith_  he was touching. Lance was particularly good at zoning out. And zoning in, sometimes. An entire class could go by in the blink of an eye, Lance having managed to catch none of the lecture, when the very next block would drag by at a snail’s pace, the ticking hand on the clock something imperative for Lance to pay attention to.

This happened a lot less often whenever Lance remembered to actually take his meds (and when he had it on hand, meaning it wasn’t robbed of him by an asshole teacher). He could pay attention much easier, not finding himself hyper-focusing on the smallest detail in a lecture or losing himself entirely, his attention span slipping from the topic like water through cupped hands. Instead, it was more controlled. Instead, Lance could keep his mind on track.

Instead, Lance wouldn’t zone out while he was petting his friend like a creep as he woke up.

He only finally caught onto the fact that Keith was waking up when his body tensed against Lance’s, probably in confusion or fear or general creeped-out-ness. He no doubt hadn’t been expecting to get groped at his first ever sleepover.

Panicking, Lance decided to keep doing it. He had to act like it was no big deal now that Keith was waking up. Right? Otherwise it’d be really weird, if he abruptly pulled away and laid there stiffly, Keith still half on top of him.

So Lance kept petting Keith’s head. And Keith kept doing nothing to stop this. In fact, Lance was pretty sure Keith was nudging his head back against his fingers, subtly turning it for Lance to move to another part of his head.

And that was just an open invitation, wasn’t it? Lance settled in for the long haul, shifting a bit under the blankets and ignoring the way Keith stiffened momentarily, as if _he_  were the one that’d been caught doing something creepy.

But Lance was honestly just getting more comfortable, and he resumed the movements of his fingers twining through Keith’s hair almost immediately, finding himself smiling when Keith let out the tinniest of pleased hums.

And then, miraculously, terrifyingly, Keith scooted further up Lance’s body, until his head was cushioned on Lance’s shoulder, his arm still thrown over Lance’s middle and their legs still intertwined. Lance couldn’t stop staring at Keith, was physically unable to, and so he caught it when Keith spared the briefest of glances towards him, only to blush immediately afterwards.

Still, he didn’t say anything. Didn’t scoot away. Didn’t stop Lance.

Perhaps risking it all, Lance whispered, “Morning,” in his usual morning-scratchy, deep from lack of use voice.

Keith’s fingers twitched against his side. “Morning,” he answered. And neither of them acknowledged the fact that they were cuddling despite having never done so before. They just kept doing it, pressed warm and close against one another

Lance was almost inclined to believe he was still dreaming. He turned his head a fraction of an inch, tilting his face closer to Keith’s. And Keith was still looking at him — about half the time, anyway. His gaze flickered continuously between Lance and some spot on the far wall, but finally it settled on Lance, their eyes locking together, their faces barely an inch apart.

Keith’s breath was warm where Lance could feel it on his lips. Almost as warm as the press of his body against Lance’s.

Lance’s eyes didn’t seem to want to stay put, examining the deep and intricate color of Keith’s eyes one moment and cataloguing every detail of his lips the next. Keith’s chin seemed to tilt up a bit, and Lance found himself moving his head a fraction downwards, closer to Keith’s mouth…

Their lips were practically touching. Lance would feel it if Keith spoke. Could feel the warmth of his lips radiating against Lance’s own.

Keith’s hand tightened against Lance’s side, and it was just then that he realized his hand was on his bare side, Lance’s shirt having been pushed up without him noticing.

For half a second, Lance felt the barest of a brush of Keith’s bottom lip against his.

And then Hunk groaned, loudly, and the two of them jerked apart so hard they bonked heads, joining Hunk in his groan as they cradled their injured skulls.

On the ground, Hunk was still stretching, the groan having left him involuntarily and having had absolutely nothing to do with Lance and Keith in the first place. Still, Lance sat up, keeping his eyes trained entirely on Hunk and resisting the urge to let them drift towards Keith. Keith, who he’d almost been dumb enough to kiss.

His heart was still pounding in his chest but he tried to ignore it, figuring that somehow, this was all a mistake. Keith had probably still been half asleep, reacting automatically as Lance had leaned in. Kissing was a natural human instinct, after all. Plus, maybe he hadn’t even realized he’d been about to kiss Lance! Who knew? His sleep-addled brain could’ve been convinced Lance was some celebrity he’d just been dreaming about —anything was more believable than the idea that Keith had been about to kiss Lance entirely of his own volition.

Knowing this, Lance tried to shove all pre-kiss jitters and excitement out of mind. Instead, he stared wide-eyed at Hunk, who finally finished stretching, his eyes peeking open and noticing Lance and Keith, wide awake and sitting upright on the bed.

“You two are awake already?” he said quietly, his eyes drifting sleepily between the two of them, before they seemed to lock on Lance, widening in surprise. “ _Lance_?” he said, forgetting to whisper. “You’re awake before ten? Voluntarily?”

For some reason unbeknownst to Lance, he flushed.

“It happens!” he protested, also forgetting to whisper — a grave mistake in the presence of a sleeping Pidge.

Said sleeping Pidge — or now, a not-so-sleeping Pidge — sat up from where her face had been buried in the pillow below her, her hair a bird’s nest around her head and her eyes squinted into slits, an evil glare entirely too present on her face. “Can you two shut the fuck up? It’s not even light outside,” she hissed, before collapsing back into her pillow.

She was right, too. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for Hunk to rise before the sun — he was some eery kind of oddity known as a “morning person”, the likes of which Lance had never before encountered. He _liked_  waking up early, said the day felt wasted otherwise, and had no problem rolling out of bed immediately after waking up instead of permeating in his own sleep-warmed bed for as long as physically possible.

But for Lance to be awake at this hour… Well, that was just plain weird. And it was only because of Keith that it’d happened. Some sort of chemical reaction in Lance’s brain, probably. The combination of the pressure of Keith against his skin with the scent of whatever shampoo he used. A blaring sign that even his sleeping eyes could read: _Your crush is cuddling with you_.

The crush that Lance finally allowed himself to look at again.

The crush that was already looking at Lance.

Caught staring, Keith’s face went bright red, and he looked away abruptly, staring hard at Hunk in an attempt to avoid looking at Lance. Genius tactic, really. Strongly endorsed.

But Keith had been staring at him. Why? In bewilderment, wondering why Lance had even tried to kiss him in the first place? In shock? Surprised Lance would even try such a thing after having betrayed his trust so utterly?

In the same exact way Lance wanted to stare at Keith? In order to simply take in every single little detail of his face? Wondering just why exactly they weren’t kissing now?

Well, it probably wasn’t that last one.

“Come on,” Hunk whispered, getting to his feet carefully so as not to disturb Pidge. “Let’s leave before we wake the gremlin again.”

Keith, no matter how he actually felt about getting kicked out of his own room, went complacently, grabbing his wishlist off his bedside table before scooting off the bed and stepping tentatively over Pidge. He casted a glance towards the dresser at Pidge’s feet but ultimately didn’t go towards it, instead following Hunk out of the room, Lance at his heels.

The three of them descended the steps, the house quiet and empty with everyone else still sleeping so early on a Saturday morning.

“How about we go pick up breakfast?” Hunk suggested. “We could get some for the whole fam. It’s the least we could do for them letting us have such an impromptu sleepover.”

Keith’s eyebrows seemed to inch up his forehead. “Oh, I really don’t think they mind —” he hastened to explain, but Hunk was already walking towards the front door, his car keys hanging on a hook next to one of Keith’s mom’s.

“Still nice of them,” Hunk argued. Or, whatever it was called when you insisted on doing something nice despite being told you didn’t have to. He grabbed his keys from the hook, swinging them around a finger and eyeing Keith questioningly. “So? You in?”

“I mean, yeah. Sure,” Keith said, his hands shoved into his sweatshirt pocket. “Should we get coffee or something too?”

Lance hummed. “If we want Pidge to function, yeah.”

“I can pick up the coffee, then,” Keith suggested, plucking the second set of keys off the hooks. “Could be faster.”  
And something inside Lance twisted. Because there were now two options: ride with Hunk — safe, constant, riskless Hunk. _Or_ , he could ride with Keith. Dangerous. Almost-kissed. Probably lots of tension!

They were already walking out the door, Hunk having agreed, and Lance was panicking internally, wondering which car he was going to join.

Hunk glanced at Lance, his eyes full of knowing, because of course Lance had gushed to him and Pidge about that-new-cute-boy the first chance he’d got. Like, literally _the first_  chance.

—

_“Do I know you?” Lance asked, staring down the boy before him. Keith, he’d said his name was. He was that kind of pretty where he probably didn’t even realize he was pretty. Like, the kind of boy that’d had Lance questioning his sexuality in the eighth grade, despite probably being an asshole and totally unawares of the looks they were harboring._

_“No,” Keith said quickly. His eyes shifted away, probably uncomfortable from how hard Lance was staring at him. Still, it wasn’t like Lance could help it! He was usually pretty good with remembering faces, and for some reason he almost felt like he recognized this Keith kid._

_“You’re not internet famous, are you?”_

_“No.”_

_Lance hummed._

_“Stop bugging him, Lance,” Pidge chided. “Welcome to Jefferson, by the way,” she added, all-too-reminiscent of Lance’s first day here. “Don’t let Lance scare you away.”_

_“Will do,” Keith managed, and Lance convinced his legs to start moving again as Pidge and Hunk resumed walking, Lance scrambling desperately for the conversation they’d just been having._

_“So anyway, I’m thinking that I’m gonna fill Iverson’s car with, like, bedbugs or some shit,” Lance said, vindication filling him (like Iverson’s car would soon be filled. With bedbugs.)_

_“Lance, no,” Hunk said firmly. “That’s the worst idea you’ve ever had. You could definitely get expelled for that.”_

_“I think it’s kind of genius,” Pidge said, stoking a fire which, honestly, didn’t need to be stoked. Lance’s indignation and rage towards Iverson was something that never faltered, never flickered._

_“Hear that, Hunk? Sounds like I’ve got support. And someone who’ll order me a supply of bedbugs from Taiwan or some shit.”_

_Pidge snickered, probably unwilling to actually fulfill this part of the deal should Lance ever approach her with it. And, with an appropriate break in the conversation, Lance changed the topic faultlessly. Smoothly. Completely nonchalant and totally undecected._

_“So,” he said, probably too loudly. He glanced behind himself, making sure Keith wasn’t somehow in the halls behind them. “That new kid, huh?”_

_Pidge, being Pidge, burst into laughter. “I_ knew it _!” she cajoled. “You totally have the hots for him.”_

_Lance, being Lance, spluttered in outrage. “Shut up!” he yelled. “I just think he’s cute! Hunk? Back me up here?”_

_“He was pretty aesthetically pleasing,” Hunk said, ever the mediator, and Lance threw his hands in the air._

_“_ Thank you _. But seriously — those eyes though,” Lance said, already lost in his own head again, already drawing Keith back to the very forefront of his mind. “Did you guys see his eyes? Also, like, his eyelashes. Were they weirdly long or_ what _? No one should get eyelashes like that, it’s not fair.”_

_“Oh good,” Pidge said, deadpan. “Lance’s first crush of the year. This should be good.”_

_“It’s not a crush, Pidge,” Lance had denied, and also been wrong about. “I’m just appreciating a beautiful person for being beautiful. Can I not do that?”_

_“_ People _can do that,” Pidge said. “You, however…”_

_“Fuck you,” Lance said, huffing as he leaned against a locker. The three of them had stopped where they usually stood in the mornings, the perfect place to waste time before class. And then: “Do you think we can invite him to lunch? If any of us see him again?”_

_“Dammit Lance, you’ve got it bad_ already _?”_

—

They were between the two cars now, Hunk and Keith’s paths finally forking as they headed towards their own vehicles, Lance crawling to a near stop between them. Hunk looked at Lance again, a look that clearly said, _Go with him, you idiot!_

And then Lance looked at Keith, who was again, already staring at Lance. Like before, he blushed, but unlike before, his gaze remained true, still concentrated entirely on Lance. His lips seemed to press together slightly, his gait slowing as he continued to his car. And maybe Lance was just really bad at reading expressions, but he was pretty sure that Keith’s agreed with Hunk’s. _Come with me, you idiot!_

“Hunk, you mind driving alone?” Lance said, having finally made up his mind. He said this while still looking at Keith, and it took every fibre of Lance’s being to not immediately start analyzing every aspect of Keith’s expression as he said this, ‘cause he was pretty sure it brightened, his entire face smothered in relief.

“I’ll be fine,” Hunk promised, and then Lance was at Keith’s passenger-side door, sliding into the seat and still trying to take in the fact that he was out and about before the sun was even up. Like, he didn’t even wake up this early on school days.

Keith joined him in the car, turning it on and buckling himself in in one smooth motion. Were people supposed to look that cute turning cars on? Buckling themselves in? Because Lance could’ve sworn that every little thing Keith ever did made him look fucking adorable. Lance wanted to press kisses all over his face and it was a crime that he had to prevent himself from actually following through with his inner-most desires.

Lance couldn’t help staring at Keith rather than the scenery as they drove. And Keith was probably aware of the weight of Lance’s gaze, too, if the way he gnawing on the inside of his cheek was any indication.

“Um, so,” Keith said suddenly, as he came to a gentle stop at a red light. His hands remained clenched around the wheel, his knuckles white, and he was staring hard at the road despite the car not even moving. “This morning…”

 _Oh God, here it comes,_  Lance thought, suddenly sure he was about to get chewed out for being a creep.

“We almost kissed,” Keith said, blunt and straight to the point. His face was red. His posture completely stiff. Lance watched as his eyes darted towards the passenger seat and back to the road. “Right?”

And fuck, if Keith could own up to it, so could Lance. “Right.”

Keith seemed to deflate, a portion of his anxiety melting out of him. “Okay,” he said, nodding as the light turned green, as he pressed on the gas a little too hard and they shot forward. “That’s good.”

“It is?” Lance blurted out of surprise, because Keith thought them almost kissing was good?! Really?

“Isn’t it?” Keith countered, except he just sounded panicked and his eyes were all wide again.

“Yes!” Lance hastily agreed, and Keith let out a sigh of relief.

“So… You like me?”

Lance was done beating around the bush. “Yes,” he said firmly. “A lot.”

Keith seemed to be fighting back a smile. “Um. Still?” he said.

“Yes, I still like you five seconds after saying I like you, Keith.”

Keith choked, laughter bubbling out of him even as he looked at Lance incredulously. “No, I mean… even after yesterday. Even though I’m trans?”

Something indignant roiled in Lance’s gut. Not towards Keith, obviously, but at the fact that there were enough shitty people in the world that he’d felt the need to ask that. Logically, Lance knew there were assholes out there who would refuse to date someone who was trans for whatever transphobic reasons, but it still angered him enough to make him wish he could do something about it. And if not for every person, then at least for one.

Lance reached over and grabbed Keith’s hand from where it’d dropped from the steering wheel to instead clench in his own lap, leaving him steering with his left only. Squeezing it, Lance said, “Keith, that changes nothing. My feelings for you are exactly the same. I’m surprised you still like _me_  after what I did.”

Keith’s mouth was pulled into a grin as he turned into the shopping center, only a few of the shops even open, the coffee shop being one of them. As Keith parked, he shrugged. “I know you, Lance. I know you weren’t trying to hurt me.”

Lance rested an elbow on the center console, leaning all the more closer to Keith, still holding his hand. “I’m really sorry about what I did,” he said softly, determined to apologize in a million different ways for putting Keith through what he had. “I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

“Okay,” Keith said. He’d leaned a little bit closer to Lance too, only a few inches separating him and Lance.

Keith seemed to be much more confident when he was half-asleep, however, as despite the desire in his body language, he remained firmly and just barely out of reach.

“You gonna kiss me or what, dude?” Lance finally said, and Keith’s entire face went red.

“You can’t call me dude before kissing me!” he exclaimed.

“No? How ‘bout ‘babe’?”

Keith shook his head.

“Baby?”

“No.”

“Sweetheart? Punkin? Lovebug?”

“God, Lance,” Keith said, the blush absolutely refusing to fade from his face. And then he closed his eyes, still facing him. “Just do it,” he said. “I’m ready.”

It took everything in Lance not to squeal at Keith’s sheer adorableness. Was this boy _real_?!

Ignoring the (large) part of Lance that wanted only to sit here and gush about how cute Keith was all day long, he got to work fulfilling Keith’s request instead. He unbuckled, because Keith was still far enough away to be almost uncomfortably out of reach, and leaned over the console, relishing in the flutter of Keith’s eyelids as Lance touched his face.

He leaned in, and softly, carefully, pressed his lips against Keith’s. He felt Keith’s breath stutter out against his lips, and Lance kissed them gently, just barely letting Keith respond before he was pulling away.

Finally, Keith’s eyes fluttered open, his lips still parted and his hand half-way raised to his mouth as if to touch it before it dropped back into his lap. Keith blinked.

“Good?” Lance said, eyebrows raised expectantly.

Keith’s eyes widened, and he shoved Lance none-too-harshly. “Shut up!” he said.

“What?” Lance laughed. “I just want to know if it was good!”

“Yes,” Keith said stiffly, surprisingly honest, and Lance’s grin felt like something that wouldn’t be leaving him anytime soon. Red in the face, Keith opened the center console and withdrew a pen. He pursed his lips for a second, glancing at Lance, before making up his mind and pulling his wishlist out of his pocket.

Ignoring Lance and his watchful gaze, Keith spread the paper open between them, clicked the pen, and crossed out, _Have my first kiss._

Keith then clicked the pen again, almost decisively, and refolded his wishlist, shoving it into his pocket without acknowledging Lance.

“You’re cute,” Lance said.

Keith, who’d been twirling the pen in his fingers almost idly, accidentally sent it flinging towards the dashboard. In an attempt to cover up his embarrassment he grabbed some money that’d been balled up in the cupholder and shoved it into Lance’s chest. “Go buy the coffee,” he instructed.

“Bossy,” Lance said, taking the money. “Is that the kind of boyfriend you’ll be?”

“Boyfriend?” Keith said, almost reverently.

“I mean,” Lance said, stuttering as he realized a kiss didn’t exactly make a boyfriend. “Only if that’s what you want.”

“It is,” Keith said, once again staring out the windshield in lieu of staring at Lance, who he spared glances for instead. “But I’m serious about the coffee. I’m not wearing my binder, so I don’t really want to get out of the car.”

“Not a problem,” Lance said, vaguely wondering if he should feel guilty for not realizing that already. Deciding not to feel guilty when even Keith wasn’t making a big deal out of anything, he leaned across the console, kissed Keith on the cheek, and said, “Be right back, babe.”

As the car door swung shut behind Lance, Keith let his forehead collide with the wheel, the car letting out a single, sharp _honk_  in response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys!! i really hope you enjoyed!!! if you did, feel free to come yell at me at [my tumblr](http://www.jilliancares.com) and [my twitter](http://www.twitter.com/jacecares) !! 
> 
> (also my twitter is a Brand New stan twitter i just created and i would v v appreciate the follow bc i am shiny and new and Friendless out here)
> 
> p.s. !! feel free to leave some wishes for keith to have!


	6. be called a pet name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “My family doesn’t have ketchup. Who forgets to get ketchup when they’re having a barbecue?” Lance scoffed, holding up the ketchup in his hand to further prove his statement. His mouth opened, likely to send the very same question Keith’s way, when his eyes took the dreaded trip down Keith’s face to his hands, where they obviously catalogued the items Keith was holding.
> 
> Keith’s face was hot by the time Lance looked back up at him, embarrassment and for some reason shame slinking through his veins, making itself known all throughout his body. Instead of commenting on any of it, Lance said, “You ready to check out?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to eli for reading this over/editing it for me!! i somehow convinced my irl to not only become obsessed with voltron and klance, but to even read all my fanfiction. life is good.

“Thanks for having us!” Lance was saying, definitely not for the first time. He was the last one out the door, Pidge and Hunk having already managed to say their thank you’s and head to the car five minutes ago.

“It’s no problem at all, Lance, honesty,” Deb was saying, leaning against the fridge and smiling happily. Sherry was sporting a wide grin of her own, and she kept looking at Keith importantly, like, _Catch this one._  Little did she know… “You’re welcome any time, sweetheart.”

“Thank you so much,” Lance said.

Sherry, looking at Keith, mouthed, _‘He’s so polite!’_

“All right I’m gonna walk you to the door,” Keith said, shoving Lance out of the kitchen as he opened his mouth in preparation for probably his seventh thank you.

“Keith!” Lance hissed as he stumbled into the hall. “I’m trying to make a good impression!”

“You already have,” Keith promised, before pushing him out the front door and onto the front stoop.

“Yeah, but,” Lance said, before lowering his voice. “I want them to like, _really_  like me when you tell them we’re dating. When are you gonna tell them, by the way? Like, soon? Or like, wait a little, build up the suspense —”

“I’m telling them when I go back inside.”

Lance gasped. “Keith!” he said. “What if they don’t like me yet?!”

“They do, I promise,” Keith said, now pushing Lance towards the edge of the porch. He could see Pidge and Hunk watching them from Hunk’s car, obviously tired of waiting on Lance’s antics.

They already knew about Keith and Lance’s newfound relationship.

After Keith had driven Lance to the coffee shop, his entire body a bundle of nerves as he’d worked up the courage to confront Lance over the almost-kiss they’d shared after waking up, he’d been rewarded with an actual-kiss. And a relationship. He’d never expected Lance to actually feel the same as him, so knowing he did felt incredibly surreal, like he might wake up at any minute. All throughout breakfast, Lance had sent him these embarrassingly knowing looks, winking at him whenever he caught his eye and grinning whenever Keith so much as spoke.

When they’d first returned to the house, Lance had jumped out of the car, grabbed Keith’s hand, and raced over to Hunk. “Hunk!” he’d yelled. “We’re dating!”

Keith had been flushing violently, and Hunk had looked between the two of them in surprise, obviously not having expected such a big development to occur on a simple coffee run.

Pidge had been the next to know, woken up despite the terror of doing so in order to be informed.

“Thank fuck,” she’d said, before immediately burying her face in her pillow again. “Now I don’t have to listen to Lance complaining about how cute Keith is anymore. You can just tell him yourself, Lance.”

Lance had just spluttered indignantly. “I never did that!” he’d protested.

The next to know would be Keith’s family, and he was sure Lance’s would be likewise informed the second Lance walked into his house.

“Fine,” Lance said now, actually stepping down the porch. “I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah,” Keith quickly agreed. He thought that would be it, but then, at the last moment, Lance leaned forward and stood on his tip-toes, grabbing Keith’s face with both hands.

Keith let out an “Mm!” sound against his lips, his hands landing on Lance’s shoulders in an attempt to balance, and then he relaxed into it, felt how soft Lance’s lips were for the second time, how warm, how smooth. They moved against his, and Keith’s fingers clenched in Lance’s shirt as he tried to keep up, and then Lance—

—jolted away from Keith as a loud honk blared behind him. They both stood there, stunned and pink-cheeked, as the windows rolled down in Hunk’s car and they were greeted to twin pairs of voices whooping and hollering.

“I think that’s our cue,” Lance said, rolling his eyes, and he turned to race down the driveway, getting in the car and saying something low and fast that Keith couldn’t hear, but which made their friends laugh.

Keith turned around as the car pulled out of his driveway, his friends waving at him before he disappeared into his house.

Figuring he should just rip the bandaid off and get it over with, Keith stepped into the kitchen where his family was still gathered, and announced, “Lance kissed me.” There was a beat of silence. “And we’re dating now.”

And then their house was the epitome of chaos. Sherry smacked Deb on the arm out of excitement, their voices loud and indecipherable as they tried to speak over each other.

Shiro, on the other hand, had barreled into Keith and was now shaking him by the shoulders, demanding answers. “When did he kiss you? Just now? Was it good? Are you gonna go on a date?”

It was almost an entire hour before Keith was free again, allowed to go up to his room after having been forced to describe his kiss in detail and unpack almost every instance he and Lance had ever spoken and shake off his parents’ pleas to invite Lance back for dinner, now that the was his boyfriend.

Keith collapsed on his bed, exhausted despite it still being the very beginning of the day, and noticed his phone on his bedside table. Lance had texted him ten minutes ago.

[Lance]: just syk, if my family doesn’t get to meet you soon, they’ll kill me

[Keith]: Yeah, my parents want you to come back for dinner sometime too.

[Lance]: OMG

[Lance]: so i DID make a good impression?

[Keith]: Yes.

Keith sat there with his phone held above his face as he waited for Lance’s response. That was before he was hit with the sudden realization that he’d never read Lance’s text from the previous day, however, which made him sit up and squint down at his screen in thought. He sat there for a moment, his thumbs hovering above the keyboard, before he decided it couldn’t hurt to see whatever Lance had and he was scrolling back up, a mix of anxiety and anticipation sitting in his chest.

[Lance]: Keith, I am so, so sorry. What I did was a horrible invasion of your privacy and I don’t even know what was going through my head when I did it. I could write paragraphs about how stupid I was and how sorry I am, but that’s probably not even your greatest concern right now. I want you to know that me, Pidge, and Hunk really are a great group of friends. None of us would ever think any less of you/love you and less for being trans, although I promise I won’t mention it to them bc I know that’s your thing to tell. I know you were keeping this a secret, and I’m sorry I ruined that, but we all love you for who you are and you can be yourself with us. If you forgive me, I want you to know that you have a friend that will be there for you and support you. Ilysm dude and I’m sorry again.

Keith sat there with his phone in his lap, a small smile creeping up on his lips. It was obvious how much work had gone into crafting this text, especially with Lance’s sudden shift to proper spelling and grammar. Lance had already made it more than clear how much he regretted reading Keith’s wishlist, but it was nice to know how sincerely he meant it, and how willing he was to make sure Keith knew that.

Already, Keith couldn’t wait to see Lance again.

—

When Keith woke up on Sunday, he knew it was going to be a bad day.

Having spoken to Lance the night before, he knew they wouldn’t be able to see each other today, thanks to Lance’s family having some sort of family barbecue. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Keith woke up with cramps and an accompanying pit of dread in his stomach.

One trip to the bathroom proved that the worst was true, and Keith proceeded to spend the day in a miserable slump. He knew going on T was different for every person, but he wished he was like one of those people who were lucky enough to never have their period again after starting it. Unfortunately, Keith instead sided with what seemed to be the masses, meaning his period was lighter and irregular and much, _much_  crampier. He’d never really had cramps before starting T, and now he usually spent his time laying comatose in his bed, alarmingly close to overdosing on Tylenol.

Shiro knew what was up the second he walked into Keith’s room in an attempt to persuade him to go out for breakfast. Instead of finding a happy younger brother ecstatic at the idea of going out for breakfast, he was greeted with the image of Keith laying curled in a ball in his bed, his blinds drawn and a heating pad pressed to his stomach. Shiro no doubt knew he wouldn’t be convincing Keith to go to breakfast that day.

“You okay?” Shiro ventured tentatively instead, and Keith just grunted. Shiro left him alone soon afterward, much to Keith’s relief.

Still, as if the day wasn’t bad enough, it soon became apparent that he was out of the supplies he required. Keith didn’t doubt he could stumble down the stairs looking pathetic enough and have someone else offer to go to the store for him, but he didn’t really like having to talk about it.

These kinds of days were when Keith felt the most dysphoric. The days where he felt even more uncomfortable in his body, where all the progress he’d made thus far hardly seemed to matter. The days where he couldn’t help staring at his shoulders, his hips, his chest, finding endless fault in them and wishing he could fall on top of a surgery table and wake up exactly the way he wanted to be.

Most days, Keith could feel happy with how he looked. Especially since starting Testosterone. Lately, he had stubble when he didn’t shave and he had enough clothes that fit him right and helped him to look more masculine. It was just when he was on his period, when his very body seemed intent to point out and emphasize all the parts of him that weren’t up to par, he felt worse than ever. Like his mood took a turn for the worst, ending up dragging on the ground until it was finally over again and he could pick himself back up.

And so Keith slouched down the stairs, after having pulled on his binder over much too sensitive breasts and shucked a sweatshirt over top. He snatched the keys off the hook by the door and turned to leave.

“Where ya going, baby?” Deb said, having heard him come down the stairs and poked her head out of the kitchen.

“Store,” Keith grumbled, and Deb’s eyes widened a little at his tone, but she nodded.

“Drive safe,” she said, and Keith grunted his acknowledgement before slipping out the door. He already missed his bed, already missed his proximity to the bottle of Tylenol.

He didn’t bother turning on music as he got in the car, in too much of a bad mood to want to sing along. Luckily, he didn’t live too far from a Walgreens, and so he was pulling into the parking lot minutes later and huffing as he strolled through the automatic doors, anxiety beginning to thrum low in his gut.

Walking down the ‘feminine care’ aisle was a mission and a half. He couldn’t do it right away, finding himself having to work up the courage to do so. He lapped the store twice, his legs slowing every time he neared the aisle before speeding up again so he could pass it, his limbs turning stiff and leaden at the thought of actually turning down there.

He couldn’t stand it. That aisle felt horrible and uncomfortable to him. He felt humiliated and upset and angry all at once, his walk-bys turning into stomp-bys as he passed the aisle for the fourth time.

It wasn’t fair. He wished he could stop assuming what people would think of him. He could just be picking the things up for his sister, or something. Or a girlfriend! Plus, trans guys existed, okay?! It shouldn’t be weird for a guy to just buy some god damn tampons!

Keith took to muttering under his breath as he approached the stupid feminine care aisle for the who-knows-how-many-nth time. Finally, decisively, he turned sharply and hurried down the aisle. He grabbed the box off the shelf, barely pausing to make sure it was the one he actually needed, and spun back around, stomping towards the check out. The second hardest part of this cursed interaction.

He was so stressed out by it all, so paranoid over the fact that he had to buy tampons and carry them as he walked through the store, that he didn’t even notice as he strode past Lance in an aisle.

“Wha — Keith?” Lance said, spinning around to face Keith as he speed-walked by. The familiar voice made Keith freeze in his tracks, spinning around to see his boyfriend in the same aisle. (And holy shit, Lance was his boyfriend.)

“Lance,” Keith said, excitement and happiness bubbling up inside of him at the sight of Lance only to be horribly crushed as he realized he was still holding the box of tampons, on complete display if Lance were to so much as look down. “Um. What are you doing here?”

“My family doesn’t have ketchup. Who forgets to get ketchup when they’re having a barbecue?” Lance scoffed, holding up the ketchup in his hand to further prove his statement. His mouth opened, likely to send the very same question Keith’s way, when his eyes took the dreaded trip down Keith’s face to his hands, where they obviously catalogued the items Keith was holding.

Keith’s face was hot by the time Lance looked back up at him, embarrassment and for some reason shame slinking through his veins, making itself known all throughout his body. Instead of commenting on any of it, Lance said, “You ready to check out?”

Keith nodded.

“I still have like, two more things to get if you wanna come with me, and then we could check out together?”

As much as Keith hated the thought of walking around the store holding a box of tampons any longer, he somehow didn’t hate it as much as he liked the idea of getting to spend some time with Lance, and so he nodded. Lance, positively beaming, said, “Great!” as he hooked his arm through Keith’s and led him down the aisle.

“You want me to hold those for you?” Lance offered casually, as he looked up at the signs above the aisles and headed towards the candy one. Keith wasn’t sure if he was offering to be a gentleman or because he’d noticed how uncomfortable Keith looked, but either way he was touched.

“You really don’t have to...” he started to say, but Lance looked over at him just to roll his eyes.

“I seriously don’t mind,” he said. “I’m in here all the time, buying these. You’d think my sisters would’ve at least synced up by now, if only to make my life easier, but nope.”

Feeling weirdly grateful and somehow less embarrassed, Keith handed the box over, letting Lance tuck it under his arm uncaringly as he came to a stop beside a row of chocolate bars, scanning them for all of a second before picking out two.

“Okay, I’m ready,” he said, turning to smile at Keith, who didn’t even have a chance to smile back before Lance was tucking his candy bars into his hand still holding the ketchup and sliding his free hand into Keith’s.

Keith’s breath caught in his throat, his heart doing a weird flip-flop in his chest as heat seemed to emanate from the touch of Lance’s hand. Not seeming to notice all the circuits and wires whir to a stop inside Keith’s brain, Lance strolled back off down the aisle, Keith’s legs automatically keeping up despite his brain’s failure. Every once in a while, Lance would turn to look at Keith, smile, and squeeze his hand. Keith’s legs felt like jelly, threatening to give out underneath him whenever Lance attacked him with that beatific smile, but he endured it. It was so, so worth it.

Before he knew it, they were at the counter, Lance handing over all the items, including Keith’s tampons. Keith panicked, wanting to insist that Lance didn’t have to buy them but not wanting to draw any attention to himself from the employee, not wanting them to scrutinize him and his stupid tampons because of it.

Annoyed with himself, Keith resigned to give Lance cash as soon as they stepped out of the store, sourly crossing his arms as Lance pulled his hand out of Keith’s in order to retrieve his wallet from his pocket.

“Did you find everything okay?” the employee asked as she scanned their items and placed them in a bag.

“Yep!” Lance said cheerfully. He inserted his card, took his bag, and thanked the woman before leading the way out of the store. Keith had no idea which car was Lance’s, and Lance gave no indication, seeing as he was following him to his own car.

“Here,” Keith said, having pulled out his money while Lance had been paying. “You didn’t, um. Have to pay for that.”

Lance scoffed, pulling the ketchup out of the grocery bag before shoving the bag into Keith’s hands. “It’s no problem,” he insisted, refusing Keith’s money and glaring at him harder when Keith protested.

“Fine,” Keith finally said, shoving his money back into his pocket. “I’m buying you something later, then.”

“Great,” Lance said. “It’s a date!”

Keith flushed, and Lance grinned, opening his car door for him. “You feeling okay, then?”

His question was met with a shrug. “Yeah,” Keith said, “fine,” despite the cramps still making their presence known in his lower stomach. He kind of _did_  feel a little bit better, having run into Lance, though that very well could’ve been the Tylenol finally kicking in.

“Good,” Lance said, before stepping in close and kissing Keith without warning. Every time he did it, Keith found himself wanting to hold on and not let go, wanting it to last longer than it did. This was their longest one to boot, Lance’s lips actually moving against his, his thumb carefully stroking Keith’s jaw, before he pulled away again. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” Keith said, feeling a little bit light headed and dizzy and overwhelmed. Lance smirked, staying right where he was as Keith struggled to convince his legs to move, to make him get into his car.

Lance closed the door behind him when he finally sat down, and Keith turned on his car just so he could roll down his window, which Lance then leaned on. Feeling brave, Keith leaned forward, the first one to initiate the kiss, this time. Lance laughed against his lips when he finally pulled away, straightening up and walking backwards across the parking lot as he said goodbye. When he finally turned around, Keith stared down at his lap with a dumb smile, unable to help the fact that his insides felt like liquid.

Keith picked the bag up out of his lap, intending to put it in the passenger seat, when he noticed the two candy bars Lance had accidentally left inside of it.

“Lance!” Keith called out his still open window, making Lance turn around. He held up the chocolate bars. “You forgot your candy!”

“They’re for you, _idioto_ ,” Lance called back, winking as Keith flushed. Lance then climbed into a big, blue truck, the engine roaring to life as Keith continued to sit there, dumbstruck. Lance pulled out of his parking spot and slowed to a stop beside Keith’s still parked car, his passenger-side window rolling down. “See you tomorrow, babe,” he called, winking at Keith a second time as he drove away, thankfully before he could hear the sound that managed to escape Keith at hearing Lance call him _babe_.

Keith was distracted the whole ride home, though he couldn’t deny his change in mood. His family was surprised by it too, all exchanging confused looks as Keith called out a hello to them as he entered the house before thundering up the stairs.

It wasn’t often that Keith forgot his wishlist — like, almost never — but Keith hadn’t even thought about it as he’d left the house, distracted and in pain and obviously not thinking any of his wishes would end up being competed in the parking lot of a Walgreens.

Now, he smoothed out the paper and clicked his pen, carefully scratching out, _be called a pet name_. He’d been tempted to cross it out before, having been called tons of pet names by his parents by now, but he’d meant it romantically when he’d written it down, and so uncrossed it had remained.

Almost shyly, Keith took a picture of the crossed off item, being sure to avoid all the others, and sent it to Lance. His response was immediate.

[Lance]: fldjdhhshs you’re so fucking cute i can’t believe you’re my boyfriend

[Lance]: i’ll help you cross off as many things as you want, babe

Keith stared at that text, flushing. It made him wonder how many of his wishes Lance had really read.

—

Going back to school felt exhilarating. This Monday wasn’t unlike any other, accompanied by the same knowledge that he would have to sit through classes and do busy work, but even just after waking up, Keith couldn’t wait for the day to begin. Not even the fact that he was on his period could ruin his good mood.

It was kind of ridiculous, maybe, being so excited simply to see Lance when they’d only been dating for two days now, but Keith had been crushing hard on him for so much longer. The fact that Lance actually felt the same about him was something he barely knew how to handle, his entire body and mind overcome with giddiness and excitement at the very thought of it.

When Hunk finally pulled into his driveway, Keith barely spared a shout goodbye for his parents before he was barreling out the front door and down the steps. Once in the car, he was greeted with a chorus of good mornings, and Lance, instead of sitting being the driver’s seat like he usually did, scooted to the middle seat, his thigh pressed against Keith’s. Keith wasn’t even sure what conversation occurred on the drive that morning, his mind too occupied with the fact that he and Lance were so close, that Lance’s hand kept settling on his knee whenever he thought of something he wanted to say to Keith, his whole body turning in his seat just to do so.

Once at Jefferson, instead of everyone heading off to their first class like usual, Lance followed Keith to his. There, Keith leaned against the lockers outside his classroom and Lance stood so close to him that one of his feet was actually in between Keith’s. Their heads were bent as they talked, their conversation in no way private but still spoken lowly enough that they were the only ones to hear it, that they had to get as close as possible in order to continue it.

When the minute bell rang, Lance spent a good few seconds just staring at Keith’s lips before he reached out and squeezed his hand instead. “I’ll see you at lunch, okay?” he said, and Keith found himself nodding, pushing Lance in the direction of his class before he was late and got in trouble because of it.

The fact that Keith’s classes seemed to drag by slower than ever probably made sense, considering Keith’s excitement to simply be with Lance again, but that didn’t make it any less excruciating. He attempted to really concentrate, to dutifully take notes and begin the work assigned to him, but even doing this didn’t help the clocks speed up. Keith ended up spending his time waiting in a way that was most unlike him, knees bouncing erratically under his desk, pencils spinning through his fingers, teeth grinding in unconscious anticipation. It was a spectacle to behold, especially since Keith could normally be found slouching back in his seat, arms crossed, completely still except for perhaps the lazy motion of one leg rocking back and forth under his desk, foot still planted on the ground.

If any of Keith’s seat-neighbors noticed this difference, however, they didn’t say anything about it, and when lunch finally, _finally_  rolled around, Keith was the first one out the door.

He hadn’t even made it to the computer lab when Lance’s arm hooked through his, surprising him and making a smile break out on his face. “Lance,” he greeted, the name slipping through his teeth without permission.

“That’s the name,” Lance said dramatically, voice lowering, and Keith meant to scoff but ended up smiling instead. “Man am I glad it’s lunch,” Lance continued, voice normal again. “I couldn’t concentrate for the life of me.”

“Me neither,” Keith admitted, and Lance’s head whipped towards him, a smile breaking out on his face so bright it was blinding.

“Really?” he demanded through a grin, and Keith shrugged almost self-consciously. Lance had just admitted the very same thing, right? It wasn’t a big deal.

“Yeah,” he said. “I just wanted to see you.”

Excitement burst out on Lance’s face as if breaking through a dam, washing away the traces of exhaustion that Keith hadn’t even noticed were there until they were gone. He unhooked his arm from Keith’s, wrapping it around his waist instead and pulling him even closer. “What d’ya say we ditch the dodos? We can eat lunch somewhere else, alone.”

Elation and guilt tugged at Keith at once, and he gnawed at his cheek. “Will they be upset?”

“Pshh,” Lance said. “They can spend _one_  lunch without us, okay?”

Thoroughly convinced, probably because he hadn’t needed much convincing in the first place, Keith let Lance lead him to a different lunch spot. They actually passed Pidge in the hallway, going in the direction of the computer lab, and she took one look at them before a single eyebrow climbed up her forehead. Keith smiled guilty at her through the throng of people between them and was pulled down another hallway before the weight of her judgement could really sink in.

Lance ended up taking Keith somewhere he had never been before: the gym. Seeing as he was a senior, he had no need to take any phys ed classes, and the school always gathered in the auditorium for any assembles, unlike his old middle school, which had always gathered in the gym.

The gym here, however, was completely empty, probably because it was most people’s lunch period. It smelled like a typical gym: sweat and sports equipment and cleaning supplies, but hardly any of that registered for Keith, because he was only about five steps into the large, echoing room before Lance was grabbing his hand and tugging him suddenly to the side.

Immediately, they were shrouded in darkness, soon made obvious as Keith realized Lance had dragged him under the bleachers. He was leading the way, stepping over and around different metal bars, and Keith glanced around half in observation and half in paranoia. He knew bleachers could slide back all together and tuck neatly against the wall, and it’d be just his luck for some teacher to come and close them when he was under there.

“Romantic,” Keith commented, as Lance finally came to a stop in the exact middle of the bleachers and plopped down. Keith sat across from him, Lance having left him the spot against the wall.

“I do what I can,” Lance said loftily, either missing Keith’s sarcasm or choosing to ignore it. Keith couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t touched by all this, though. Lance had gone out of his way to get Keith to a private lunch spot, and he kept sending these adorably excited looks at him, as if he couldn’t get enough of him. If that was the case, then Keith could confidently say that he felt the same about Lance.

In hindsight, Keith should’ve realized they were in a prime make-out spot. At least then he could’ve mentally prepared himself for the expression Lance would wear right before he leaned in, could’ve prepared for the way his eyes would grow half-lidded, his tongue darting out to wet his lips.

When Lance kissed him, it was unlike the other times they’d kissed. It wasn’t a peck, wasn’t something that lasted barely a few seconds before they pulled away. No, this was a completely different experience.

Lance had shuffled closer, had risen up on his knees and leaned down, his hands cupping Keith’s face and making goosebumps spring up across his body as he’d pressed their lips together. In response, Keith’s legs were sprawled out on the floor before him, his fingers bunched in Lance’s sweatshirt, it taking every bit of his self-control to keep from pulling Lance down on top of him.

Keith had never made out with anyone before, so, granted, he didn’t have much to compare this experience to, but from what he could tell, Lance was an _amazing_  kisser. It started slow, with Lance’s lips slotting against his and moving languidly, pressing and pulling and making Keith’s breath catch in his throat. But it wasn’t until Lance’s hand moved to the back of his head, his fingers tangling in Keith’s hair, that Keith truly realized he was in trouble.

His heart was pounding in his chest, loud in his ears as he gasped against Lance’s mouth, as Lance pulled on his hair and licked into his mouth and made Keith’s body go hot from the inside out. Keith was pressing up into Lance, his back arching off the wall as he attempted to get closer to him, when Lance decided to sling his leg over Keith’s lap, plopping comfortably onto his thighs and pushing him firmly back into the wall.

Keith could barely get his bearings, could barely even manage to think as he was absorbed in the feelings of Lance’s mouth against his, Lance’s hands in his hair, Lance’s weight on his lap. Little breathy sounds kept escaping him, kept dancing across Lance’s lips, and he tried to clamp down on them, afraid they would turn into moans if he didn’t.

Lance, either completely unaware of Keith’s struggle or simply uncaring, kissed down his jaw, right below his ear, down his neck and above his collar bones. Keith was like putty in his hands, and all he could do was cling to Lance and wish for more as Lance showed him all the wonders of kissing, as he pulled Lance back up to his mouth and stole hungry kisses against his lips.

They broke apart, panting, when the bell rang. Keith swore it had only been two minutes, tops, but then his lunch was still uneaten, and Lance was perched in his lap.

“Shit,” Lance said, sounding half apologetic and half pleased. “I swear I’m not trying to starve you.”

Keith laughed, and in a haze of euphoria said, “You wanna come over later?”

Lance’s eyebrows rose, and it was with an emphatic, “ _Yes_ ,” that he pressed his lips against Keith’s before pushing himself to his feet and holding out a hand for Keith.

They ended up shoving their uneaten lunches back into their bags before walking to their classes, hand in hand. Lance squeezed Keith’s hand and said goodbye at the beginning of one hallway, his class located down it, and Keith continued on his own, rounding the corner and blushing violently when he ran into Pidge, who gave him a knowing look.

“Keith,” she greeted, expression purposely blank.

“Pidge,” Keith returned.

There was a moment of silence, before Pidge spoke up again, saying, “You know you have a hickey, right?” Her eyebrows rose as she waited for an answer. Perhaps taking the obvious panic that came over Keith’s face as answer enough, she went on to explain further, pressing a finger into her neck, just below her ear. “Right here,” she said, before grabbing onto the straps of her backpack and walking uncaringly down the hall.

Keith spent his next class slouched low in his desk, hoping no one would comment on his apparently noticeable hickey. Thankfully, after a while a distraction came in the form of his phone buzzing against his thigh, and Keith eagerly fished it out of his pocket to see who had messaged him.

The home screen said ‘Lance <3’ which Keith had to stare at for a good, long moment before he decided Lance must’ve changed his contact at some point without Keith noticing. Unbidden, a smile creeped onto Keith’s lips, and he unlocked his phone.

[Lance <3]: i can’t come over to your house after school :(((

[Keith]: How come?

[Lance <3]: mrs. p gave me detention for not paying attention

Despite Keith’s disappointment, something warm blossomed in his gut. Was he the reason Lance couldn’t pay attention? Was he still thinking about their kiss as much as Keith was?

[Keith]: Damn that sucks :(

[Keith]: Maybe we can hang out tomorrow?

[Lance <3]: yeah!!!!

[Lance <3]: now i gtg before i get yelled at again lmao

[Lance <3]: mwah!

[Lance <3]: (that’s a kiss)

Keith had to resist the urge to snort as he read Lance’s messages, tucking his phone back into his pocket. Like Lance, he found himself having a hard time concentrating. Unlike Lance, however, it was something he could actually help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> follow me on [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/jacecares) if you haven't already!! i just wrote this fun twitter au over there too if you want to check it out! ([here's](https://twitter.com/jacecares/status/1011096271740907521) a link!)


	7. cheer someone up

Keith hummed as Lance slid over him, tilting his head and deepening the kiss. It felt good. Like, really good.

It wasn’t just the kiss that was making it good, though. Lance’s roaming hands definitely played a factor, his fingers brushing over Keith’s stomach, down his sides, into his hair. Keith felt light and sensitive everywhere, his body continually arching into Lance’s touch, following his hands wherever they went.

“This okay?” Lance asked, having shucked Keith’s shirt up to the bottom of his binder. Keith nodded hastily, pretty much sure he’d be fine with anything at that point.

“Yeah,” he rasped, gasping as Lance realigned himself, kissing at Keith’s jaw and throat instead. He could feel his arousal pressed against his hip. The first time it had happened, Keith had barely been able to urge the blush out of his cheeks, unable to believe that he was the one doing that to Lance.

Now, he just took it in stride, it having happened the few times things had begun to get heated between them.

Keith tilted his head, his eyes drifting shut as Lance continued down, his tongue flicking out against Keith’s collarbone. Meanwhile, his hand was sliding back down his side, briefly skimming between his legs before settling high up on his thigh. Unconsciously, Keith spread his legs a little bit more, giving Lance more room, and his back arched as Lance began to suck, making—

The door flew open.

Keith and Lance flung themselves away from each other, hastening to sit up, red-faced and beyond surprised. Keith had thought they were home alone. Shiro looked unimpressed.

“What do you want?” Keith said quickly, trying to drag everyone’s attention away from the fact that he and Lance had been getting hot and heavy in the very bed they were still sitting in. He tugged his shirt back down.

“I was going to ask if you wanted to go see a movie with me, but…”

“No thanks,” Keith said, glaring at Shiro and generally cursing his entire existence. He and Lance so rarely got to hang out, lately. A bunch of things had started cropping up in Lance’s life, and he was practically always busy after school, having to drop his sister off at basketball practice or drive his grandma to Wednesday mass or pick up the groceries for his mom. The moments when they got to actually hang out together were sadly few and far in between, the weekends the only time ever really guaranteed to them.

“Yeah, I figured,” Shiro said, and he gave Lance this kind of death stare before backing out of the room and failing to close the door behind him. Subtle.

“He _hates_  me,” Lance said immediately, curling into a ball and tucking his face into Keith’s shoulder.

“He doesn’t.”

“He wants to kill me. He saw me sucking on your neck!”

“Lance—”

“My hand was on your thigh!”

“He’ll get over it.”

“He knows I’m taking his sweet little brother’s innocence and he wants to _kill me_  for it,” Lance dramatized, tilting his head to look up at Keith with big, sad eyes. Keith resisted the urge to sigh. Yeah, Shiro had really ruined the mood with that one.

“You’re not taking my innocence,” Keith said instead, turning on his side to face Lance with a faux scowl.

“I mean,” Lance said, his hand coming up to rest on Keith’s side, shoving his shirt up again so he could touch bare skin. “I’m taking _some_  of your innocence.”

Keith kicked him and Lance laughed, his hand taking to running over Keith’s side somewhat comfortingly. And then he froze, his eyes growing wide and his face going pale as his phone started ringing on Keith’s bedside table.

“Uh oh,” he said.

“What?”

Lance sat up, leaning over Keith and snatching his phone, wincing as he saw whoever it was calling him. “I gotta take this,” he said, sitting back and oh so slowly sliding the answer icon across the screen. He was already smiling guiltily as he held it up to his ear. “ _Hola Mami_.”

Fast and angry sounding Spanish emitted from Lance’s phone, making him shrink back with a wince whenever his mom’s voice bit out something particularly sharp. He answered her in Spanish, the two of them going back and forth, Lance mainly sounding apologetic, and then they hung up. He cleared his throat.

“What was that about?” Keith asked, mainly alarmed.

“Well,” Lance said slowly. “Technically, I’m not supposed to be here.”

Keith frowned, sitting up as his mind raced, wondering just why Lance would be told not to come over. Did his parents disapprove of him despite having yet to meet him? Was that _why_  they disapproved of him? Was it… Had Lance told them he was trans? And they were against that?

Lance put a halt to Keith’s spiralling thoughts of panic. “I mean, in the loosest form of the term… I’m grounded.”

“ _What_?”

“I told my mom I was going shopping with Luis, but I guess he forgot to pick me back up before going back home. God, he’s the worst,” Lance said, rolling his eyes.

“But why are you grounded?”

Lance shrugged, his eyes shifting off to the side. “I guess I don’t have the best grades right now.”

“Not because of me, right?” Keith asked, instantly paranoid. If Lance’s grades had been fine before they’d started dating, only to plummet because he was suddenly distracted…

But Lance shook his head quickly. “No, not at all,” he assured him. “It’s just, uh… senioritis, you know? I can barely force myself to do my homework this year.”

Keith shook his head, amused. “Well you better start doing it,” he said, jabbing a finger into Lance’s chest. “When else will we have time to hang out?”

“I know,” Lance said, rolling his eyes, and Keith sat up and scooted off the bed.

“Where are you going?”

“To drive you home, doofus. You’re grounded.”

—

Keith had thought that that would be that. Lance was grounded and would be ungrounded soon enough. He’d start doing his work and paying attention and getting the grades he needed to be able to hang out with Keith again on the weekends. Besides, it wasn’t like they had to go completely without seeing each other. They still got to be together at school, got to sneak kisses between classes and spend lunches trying not to accidentally cuddle and annoy their friends. Or at least, they _did_ , until Lance was suddenly landed with in school detention.

It didn’t even make sense, when it happened. The four of them were hanging out in the morning before class, deep in a debate about whether aliens were real or not. Keith and Pidge were on the side of, _um, duh, the universe is infinitely huge and if you think we’re the only life out there you’re idiots_ , and Hunk and Lance were on the side of being idiots.

Keith had just made this very point when Lance decided to argue back, swinging his arms through the air to really emphasize the words he was saying. It was as he was doing this that he accidentally smacked a passing teacher on the arm, who immediately whirled to see who had committed the offense. Her eyes locked onto Lance like a cat’s on a mouse.

“I’m so sorry,” Lance was already saying, but the teacher Keith didn’t recognize wasn’t having it.

“I don’t want to hear it, McClain,” she said. “I’ll be seeing you in ISR.”

Lance’s mouth dropped open, his eyes widening, as Pidge and Hunk immediately tried to jump to his defense. Keith was struck still, dumbfounded. It was exceedingly rare for teachers to give out in school restriction, and most students only got it if they were those trouble makers who constantly talked back to teachers and made their lives difficult. Lance was nothing like that, and it didn’t make sense for him to get such a big punishment over something so minor.

“Mrs. Clark, that’s really unfair,” Hunk was saying.

“Yeah,” Pidge added, both her and Hunk trying to talk over each other. “It was an accident—”

“He really doesn’t deserve ISR—”

“Well seeing as regular detention isn’t working, maybe ISR can teach him how to behave,” Mrs. Clark said angrily, giving Lance a death stare. When had she given him a regular detention before? 

Lance didn’t acknowledge this, though, nor did he deny it. He just said, “Mrs. Clark, please, I’m doing bad enough in my classes without having to be in ISR all day.”

Mrs. Clark just looked at him sternly. “Maybe you should have thought about that beforehand, Mr. McClain,” she said. “Now come with me. I’ll escort you to your detention.”

Lance looked crestfallen, but he followed her without a backward glance. Keith, Hunk, and Pidge stayed behind, giving each other bewildered and astonished looks.

“What a fucking bitch,” Pidge said, breaking the silence.

“Yeah,” Keith agreed. “Like, when could she even have given him detention?”

“Oh, she gave him three just last week,” Hunk said grumpily. He appeared to still be lost in thought, not noticing the way Keith frowned.

“He didn’t have detention last week,” he argued. “He was doing things after school every day.”

Hunk pursed his lips, his eyes sliding away from where he’d been watching Lance and Mrs. Clark’s retreating backs to instead focus on Keith. “No, I’m sure,” he said. “I lent him my textbook so he could do his homework in there on Thursday.”

“Oh, okay,” Keith said, but in actuality his mind was reeling. Lance had told him he had to babysit his cousins on Thursday… Why would he lie to Keith about having detention?

It wasn’t on purpose, but Keith fell into a suspicious funk. He started regarding everything Lance said and did with suspicion, still unsure as to why Lance would lie to him in the first place. He was grounded, but hadn’t told Keith so. He was getting detentions, but lied to Keith about it. _Why_?

He felt like it was somehow connected to him, though he couldn’t tell if he was just being somehow really self-centered and paranoid about it all. But it just seemed to add up. Lance hadn’t been sitting through detentions every day before they’d started dating, and now...

Lance was still lying to Keith. And Keith, possibly because he was a bad boyfriend, had taken to snooping. When Lance couldn’t hang out after school, making sure to tell Keith he was busy some way or another, Keith would investigate. He’d walked past the detention center once, seeing Lance slumped in a desk when he was supposed to be going shopping with his grandma. Once, he’d found Lance’s location on snapchat, seeing it was still at the school when he said he’d be across town. Sure, Keith felt a little guilty for snooping like he was, but he felt like it wasn’t anything compared to the hoops Lance was going through to lie to Keith.

Was it because he didn’t want to date him anymore? Was he acting out in class and getting bad grades in _hopes_  of getting detention, simply so he could avoid Keith?

In the end, Keith confronted him. He couldn’t take it anymore, and if Lance didn’t want to be with him any longer, so be it. Better to be broken up than dating like this, he figured, despite the way his heart gave a desperate throb at the thought.

He cornered Lance under the bleachers, Lance having swept him away so they could have a rare moment alone. He’d pulled out a cupcake for Keith, having baked them for their pseudo-date under the bleachers, but even that wasn’t (adorably cute) enough to make Keith change his mind.

“I need you to tell me the truth,” he said, after Lance had unwrapped his cupcake and started licking the icing off the top. He hadn’t even started any of his lunch yet, insisting you had to eat the best part first.

“What?” Lance said, his eyebrows furrowing together and this confused expression coming over his innocent-looking face, as if he wasn’t the cause for all of Keith’s current stress.

“Do you want to break up with me?” Keith asked, blinking when Lance’s expression shuddered, his hand falling to his lap and holding his cupcake limply. “Or — or are you just in this for, like, sex?” he continued, shakily trying to build a wall around his heart before Lance could puncture it.

“What?” Lance said again, looking even more confused now. “Is that what you think I want out of our relationship?”

“I don’t know,” Keith said. “But I _do_  know you’re lying to me. All the time. About your detentions.”

Lance didn’t even have the grace to look confused about this one.

“Keith…”

“Just, what is it? Why do you keep having detention? And why are you lying to me about them?”

Lance sucked his lip into his mouth. “I can’t tell you.”

“What?” Keith said, because this wasn’t an outcome he’d anticipated at all. He’d thought for sure Lance would deny it, and if not, that he’d just go ahead and spill everything right then and there. He’d never suspected he might just… refuse.

“I can’t tell you,” Lance repeated.

“You... can’t tell me?”

Lance, looking guilty, nodded his head. “Yeah,” he affirmed.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know.”

“What am I supposed to do with that?” Keith said, angry now. “What do I do now? Just _let you_  lie to me?”

Lance winced. “Yes?” he tried pathetically.

Anger and confusion rivaled within Keith. Lance was insane if he thought Keith was actually just going to sit by and let him _lie_  to him. He couldn’t think of a single reason why Lance wouldn’t be able to tell him why he was in detention. Keith already knew he was getting bad grades, already knew he’d apparently been in detention enough to warrant getting ISR for a minor offense. So what was the point of lying to him any longer? What could he possibly benefit from that?

But Keith was stubborn. And he had the sudden, burning desire to _know_ , to figure out why the hell Lance had been lying to him. He knew that Lance was dead-set, that nothing Keith said would convince him to tell the truth, and so he played along.

“Fine,” he said, clearly still angry but no longer pushing it. He finally took the cupcake Lance had offered him and took a large bite.

“Really?” Lance said, incredulous. “You’ll drop it?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Keith said, still not looking at Lance. And, okay, curbing his anger was more difficult than he’d imagined, but that was to be expected, right? It’d be more suspicious if he was suddenly chipper about the whole thing. At least this way Lance wouldn’t suspect anything.

“Okay,” Lance said slowly, his head tilting down as his thumb played with the wrapper of his own cupcake. “And I’m sorry, you know. Maybe… maybe one day, I can explain…”

“Okay,” Keith said, glancing up at Lance. Lance smiled tentatively, and Keith didn’t glare at him, so Lance probably figured that was progress enough. He had no idea that Keith really wasn’t dropping it, and that after school that day, Keith was going to follow him to detention and see if he could figure out what the hell was going on.

\--

Following Lance was nerve-wracking. He already knew he’d be defensive if he got caught, all _‘You can’t be upset with me for following you when you’re the one lying to me!’_ , and he’d rather just avoid that all together, really. So it was with caution he shadowed Lance through the hall, followed him towards the detention center, where he was headed like it was second nature. And it must’ve been, if he was getting detention day after day.

He couldn’t help wondering why Lance’s grades had plummeted so horribly to warrant this. He knew Lance was smart, knew he was capable of getting the grades he needed, and maybe it was because of that niggling worry deeper down that he was so upset about Lance lying to him.

Because people didn’t just lie for no reason, right? There must’ve been _something_ , some reason or ulterior motive for Lance feeling like he couldn’t tell Keith what was going on. Maybe someone was bullying him, or something. Stealing his homework and threatening him, maybe. Keith had seen all the informational videos about bullying, after all.

But it was while he was lost in thought that the atmosphere changed.

The halls were empty, everyone having hurried out of the school as fast as humanly possible in order to get home. Keith had told Hunk he was staying after to complete a project in the library, so he and Pidge wouldn’t be waiting up for him, which just left a few students and teachers left ambling around in the school.

Lance had stopped in his tracks, was standing still right in the middle of the hall because of a teacher having turned the corner. Iverson.

He hadn’t noticed Keith, yet, was just staring at Lance, and Keith panicked. What if he saw Keith and brought attention to him, made Lance realize he was there? Made him realize Keith had been following him?

And so, with neither Lance nor Iverson paying him any attention, Keith darted into the nearest classroom, where he then proceeded to panic even more. Because after easing the door closed behind him, he noticed Iverson talking to Lance, and then motioning towards him, and then the both of them were walking towards _this very classroom_.

In a panic, Keith realized Iverson’s name was written on the chalkboard, and a plaque with his name was sitting on the desk, and holy fuck Keith was in Iverson’s room and he was taking Lance in there right now—

It probably wasn’t his smartest move, but after jerking his head around frantically, his heartbeat suddenly loud and obnoxious in his ears, Keith spotted one of those mobile wardrobes all teachers seemed to have for school supplies. Keith wrenched open the doors, sending a silent thanks to God that the thing was actually unlocked, and shoved himself inside the cabinet, stepping on papers and supplies and bending his body weirdly around the random shelves inside of it. He just managed to pull the doors nearly all the way back shut, allowing him just a sliver to peek through, when the door of the classroom opened.

Iverson shut it behind him and Lance, crossing his arms and turning to regard the student before him.

“Well?” he said.

“I don’t know what you expect from me,” Lance snapped, taking Keith aback. He couldn’t believe he was talking to a teacher like that. “It hasn’t even been a month. I don’t have any more.”

Iverson seemed to square his shoulders, making himself bigger as he leaned in towards Lance. “You will get me what I want, when I want it,” he said threateningly. And all the hairs on Keith’s body stood at attention. This… wasn’t right. He was totally threatening Lance, right? Teachers couldn’t talk to students like that. What the hell was going on?

“I _can’t_ ,” Lance insisted. “I can’t just go get more. My mom would think I’m selling it, or something.”

Keith still couldn’t quite grasp what was going on, but he could tell by the tone of the situation and how shady it was in general that whatever this was, wasn’t right. So he eased his hand into his pocket — slow and careful, beyond paranoid that he’d bump the cabinet door and send it flying open — and withdrew his phone as Iverson was speaking, shakily holding it up and pressing the camera against the crack in the door as he hit the record button.

“—know you’re smarter than that. You can cook up some little plan to get me what I need, and if you don’t, you know the consequences you’ll face. Are we understood?”

Lance was shaking his head. He sucked in a shaky breath, saying in a panicked rush, “I’m — I _can’t_. I’m already failing all my classes! My mom wants to kill me, my boyf— I just, I’m—” Lance’s hands were over his face, the heels of his hands pushing into his eyes before his fingers raked back, clawing through his hair. His face was red, his eyes wet, and he was still breathing loudly. “There’s no way I can refill my prescription—”

Iverson took a step forward and jabbed Lance in the chest. “Listen here, McClain. You get me what I need by the end of the week or you’ll face the consequences. That enough inspiration for you?”

And with that, Iverson turned and left his own classroom, the door clicking into place behind him, and Lance collapsed into a desk, breathing erratically as a sob built up in his throat, a hand pressed to his mouth and another clinging desperately onto the edge of the desk. Keith didn’t even think about hiding any longer, didn’t think about the fact that he’d followed Lance in order to end up in here. He spared a second to stop the recording, barely a minute long, and burst out of the wardrobe, making Lance jerk and look at Keith in teary-eyed surprise.

“Wh— _Keith_?” Lance said.

“Come on,” Keith said immediately. “Let’s get out of here before he comes back.”

“What are you doing here?” Lance said, and then his brain seemed to catch up to the fact that Keith had been here to whole time, and he was rapidly wiping at his eyes, standing up out of the desk. “That wasn’t — that wasn’t what it looked like. He was just — and I’m just…”

“Lance,” Keith interrupted sternly, grabbing Lance’s and dragging him towards the door. “You can tell me what the fuck’s going on once we’re out of this classroom. Come on.”

Lance was still protesting, voice still sounding thick with tears and now on the edge of panic, but Keith had never felt so sure that he was doing the right thing, getting Lance out of there. With his free hand, he dug his phone out of his pocket and texted Shiro that he needed a ride, and then he was pushing open a side door and pulling Lance out of the school.

“Keith, I have to go to detention,” Lance said, tugging his wrist a bit when Keith didn’t let go.

“What are they gonna do, give you more detention?” Keith scoffed. The parking lot was empty, all the students having already left, and Keith pulled Lance all the way to the curb to wait for Shiro before plopping down onto it, pulling Lance down with him. And then, “What was that?” he asked. “What’s Iverson want from you?”

“Nothing!” Lance said unconvincingly, looking away from Keith and fisting his hands in his jeans. “It’s nothing, Keith, really. Just forget about it, please.”

“No,” Keith said harshly, glaring at Lance. And he wasn’t _angry_  at Lance, he was just… scared. And confused. And mad at Iverson. “It sounded like he was blackmailing you,” Keith said. “You have to tell someone.”

“No,” Lance said, before all the words had even left Keith’s mouth. “No, I ca—don’t want to. Don’t _need_  to. It’s nothing, Keith, seriously.”

“It is something!” Keith pressed. “You said something about a refill? What, is he taking drugs from you?”

“No.”

“Didn’t Hunk say you have ADHD, once? Do you take meds for that?”

“No.”

“It’s Adderall, right? Is Iverson taking your Adderall?”

“ _No_ ,” Lance said, but his legs were bouncing crazily and his fingers were white knuckled in the fabric of his jeans.

“Lance,” Keith said, and he scooted over, dropping a hand on Lance’s back. He’d half expected him to jump or shove him off but surprisingly, he leaned into the touch, melted under Keith’s hand. He was crying again, though silently this time, but it was impossible to miss the red of his eyes, the wetness on his cheeks and the quiver in his lip. “Hey. It’s gonna be okay. Let’s start by telling your mom, okay?”

Lance shook his head, his body jerking under Keith’s hand as he suddenly hiccuped. “I can’t,” he whispered.

“We won’t let Iverson blackmail you,” Keith promised. “If your mom can talk to some school officials, they’ll stop whatever he wants to do to you—”

“It’s not me,” Lance interrupted. He sucked in a quick breath, as if he couldn’t believe he’d even admitted that much.

“What?” Keith said, confused now. “He’s… _not_  blackmailing you?”

“It’s—” he managed, his bottom lip pulled up between his teeth. He cleared his throat. And then, shakily, “It’s you.”

“What’s me?” Keith said, beyond confused.

“He _knows_ ,” Lance said desperately. “He knows you’re trans and he’s gonna out you if I don’t get him more Adderall by Friday.” He said it in a rush, and then he turned his head, looking to Keith as more tears spilled down his cheeks. “I can’t do that to you,” he added, voice weak.

Keith’s head was spinning. The whole situation was insane, parts and pieces of it sticking in his brain, but what was clear when the dust settled was that Lance had been doing this for _him_. Had been suffering just for him, giving up his medication and lying to Keith and getting detentions just to try and protect him. Guilt flooded through him for being so angry with Lance, and then he found himself glaring, ironically angry at him again.

“We’re telling your mom,” Keith said harshly.

“Keith,” Lance tried.

“I don’t care,” Keith interrupted. “It doesn’t matter anymore, all right? This is insane. We’re telling your mom and the principal and we’re fixing this. Okay?”

Lance let out a shuddering breath, and it looked like he wanted to argue some more, wanted to just continue to suffer through it all for the same bullshit reasons, but then he was nodding and crumpling against Keith’s side, shaking as Keith held him tighter.

Shiro was there before too long, thankfully, and while his eyes widened at Lance’s state he didn’t say anything about it, even when Keith climbed into the back seat to be with him instead of the front with Shiro.

“To Lance’s house?” Shiro questioned as he pulled away from the curb, driving slowly.

“Um. Can I go to your house?” Lance said quietly, directing his question at Keith. “Just until I calm down?”

“Yeah,” Keith said immediately, grabbing Lance’s hand and intertwining their fingers together. “Of course.”

So Shiro took them home and Keith stole Lance away to his bedroom before he was forced to suffer through questions and conversation by his family. He sat Lance down on the edge of his bed, joining him and sitting close enough that their legs touched.

“Are you gonna be okay?” Keith found himself asking, nudging Lance’s foot with his own.

Lance turned to look at him. “I think so,” he said. “I feel a lot better now, actually. Like a weight’s been lifted off my shoulders.”

“That’s good,” Keith said, smiling.

“You know what else is good?”

“What?”

“You get to cross something else off your list,” Lance said, grinning. It should’ve looked out of place on his tear-streaked, red-eyed face, but seeing Lance smiling like that only looked right. He shuffled over, pushing Keith down onto the bed and straddling him, his butt planted on the tops of Keith’s thighs as his fingers slipped into Keith’s front pocket, pulling out his wishlist. He shook it in the air teasingly.

“What are you talking about?” Keith said, propping himself up on his elbows. Seeing Lance holding his list probably should’ve felt embarrassing or uncomfortable, but it just felt oddly… intimate. He kind of liked Lance knowing about it, liked showing him things when he crossed them off.

“Pretty sure I read something on here about cheering someone up?” Lance said, raising his eyebrow in question and getting a nod in return before he began unfolding the piece of paper. His eyes scanned over the list before he ended up flipping it over, gaze flicking around the page, and, “Here,” he said, tapping the item on the list twice. “Cheer someone up.”

Keith frowned, grabbing the paper and looking at it himself. And then he remembered. Remembered getting the urge, remembered writing it down.

“Oh my God,” he said.

“What?”

“Um. This is on my list because of you,” Keith said, the memories rushing forward. He was so familiar with his wishlist, saw the items on it so constantly, that they hardly ever registered in his brain anymore. But now, with the words swirling around his head, he had a distinct memory to accompany it.

“What? When?” Lance said incredulously.

And this was it, wasn’t it? Because it was something Lance had inspired him to write down _years_  ago. It’d never really meant anything to him before, just something he’d seen that Lance kid do, but now that Lance kid was Keith’s _boyfriend_ , and he still didn’t quite know that Keith had gone to the same middle school as him.

The memory was pretty vague, but distinct enough for Keith to know it’d been Lance. They’d been in seventh grade, and it’d been after lunch, those 15 minutes allotted to the students to go outside in what no one was calling recess but was definitely recess, and he’d seen it. Some girl Keith didn’t remember the name of had fallen from the monkey bars, and Keith’s eyes had widened in shock, his body stiffening as he realized he or one of the other many kids standing around should probably run and get a teacher. Lance had been sitting on top of the monkey bars, one of the few kids talented and strong and brave enough to actually pull themselves up there, but he’d jumped off without a moment’s hesitation, kneeling next to the crying girl.

Keith had barely been able to hear him over the cacophony of the other students, muttering and shouting and doing absolutely nothing to actually help the situation, but he’d definitely heard a murmured, “ _Are you okay_?” The rest had been too quiet for him to catch, but Lance had said something with a grin, and the girl had laughed a watery laugh, and then Lance had been helping her to her feet, the girl finally with a smile on her face.

Watching the spectacle had made something in Keith sit up and take notice, had made him feel a sudden, _I want to do that_ , and that night he’d been adding it to his list. All thanks to Lance.

“Um,” Keith said, waving his hand kind of flippantly. “I, uh, got inspired after watching you comfort someone.” A pause. “In middle school.”

Lance blinked, and then his eyes widened in surprise. “Wait, we went to the same middle school?!”

Keith shrugged. “I guess.”

“What do you mean you _guess_? We really went to the same middle school?”

Keith shrugged again. “Yeah,” he said. “It was before I came out, so…”

Lance was still gaping at him. “Did I know you?”

 _Had_  Lance known him? It wasn’t like they’d been friends, and they’d definitely never talked, at least not more than, ‘Hey, can I borrow a pencil?’ But they’d definitely shared classes. Definitely been in each other’s proximity. Enough for Keith to notice that Lance, even then, was funny. But was that enough for Lance to have known who he was?

“I don’t think so,” Keith said. “We had a few classes together, though.”

Lance’s eyes bugged out of his head. “What if I _did_  know you?! How crazy is that!”

Keith snorted. “Tell you what,” he said. “If you go home and show your mom the video I took right away, then maybe later I’ll go through our seventh grade yearbook with you.”

Lance could hardly contain his grin. “Come with me,” he blurted.

“What?”

“Come with me!” Lance urged. “You can finally meet my family, be there as moral support, _and_  I have all the yearbooks from middle school, so.”

Keith huffed out a sigh, anxiety sizzling in his gut at — well, everything, really. Meeting Lance’s family. Dropping this bomb on them. Letting Lance see him from before he’d started presenting as a guy. Then again, Lance would probably go back and scour his yearbooks even if Keith didn’t go with him, so.

“Fine,” Keith ended up saying, biting down a smile as Lance, still perched in his lap, did a little victory dance.

“Okay,” he said quickly. “Gimme a pen so I can cross this off and then let’s get going!”


	8. Operation: The Seniors Say So-Long!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Keith,” Marco said abruptly, the second their introductions were truly done, and Keith blinked in his direction, surprised. “Can we help you do something on your wishlist?”
> 
> Keith’s eyes widened, his face growing hot, as Lance spluttered incomprehensibly beside him. “ _Marco_ ,” he hissed.

Keith had somehow managed to shove down the general feeling of fear and anxiety at the prospect of meeting his boyfriend’s parents in the face of coming clean to them about their son’s blackmail. That was, until he was actually pulling into the driveway and putting his car in park. _Then_  it all kind of came crashing into him, the realization that he was about to walk into a home with a family likely as crazy as Lance. A family of people that, as Lance had told him before, were apparently vying to meet him. Him, a boy who was about to walk in there, say hello, and show them a video of their son being blackmailed and driven to tears by one of his teachers. Yay.

“Ready?” Lance said, looking a hell of a lot less apprehensive than Keith. He really must not have been kidding when he’d said a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, which was a good thing, obviously. Keith couldn’t imagine going through what he had had, couldn’t imagine being so noble and selfless that it hadn’t even been _him_  being blackmailed.

It’d been Keith.

But he’d think of that later. In the moment, the two of them still sitting on the school’s curb, he’d decided he didn’t care at all whether Iverson actually went through with his threat, and even now Keith stood by that sentiment. He had all the friends he needed, and he knew they cared about him for who he was. He could give a rat’s ass about the rest of the school, honestly.

“Yeah,” Keith finally managed to answer, mustering up the energy to channel a weak smile. Lance raised his eyebrows at him.

“Really? ‘Cause you look nervous as shit.”

Keith glowered. “It’s nerve wracking, okay? You have a big family.”

“Yeah and they’re gonna stop bombarding you with questions the second we say, ‘Hey! Lance is being bullied by a teacher!’”

“All right, fine,” Keith muttered, but Lance didn’t let him actually climb out of the car before reaching over and grabbing his hand, giving it a firm squeeze as he held his smile. Lance was unbelievable. Just a little while ago he’d been crying on Keith’s shoulder, and now _he_  was the one reassuring _him_.

“They’re gonna love you,” Lance promised. He cocked his head to the side, pursing his lips. “ _Really_  love you, actually, considering it’s thanks to you I’m gonna get out of this mess. Are you sure you recorded enough of it?” he added, suddenly worried.

“Definitely,” Keith assured him. He’d even watched it back and made sure you could actually hear everything when Lance had gone to the bathroom earlier. There was no way the video wouldn’t act as definite proof.

“Okay,” Lance said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Then I’m ready if you are.”

Keith smiled his assent, was surprised when Lance leaned forward lightning-quick to give him a peck on the lips, and climbed out of the car while trying to restrain his blush, because for some reason shit like that still got him pink in the cheeks.

The second Lance opened the front door, he greeted his family like Keith honestly should’ve expected him to. “ _I’m home_!” he hollered, the door banging against the wall (Keith noticed several scuff marks and dents on the poor abused thing), before adding at the same exact volume, “ _And I brought Keith_!”

“Keith’s here?!” someone — a girl — exclaimed from another room with a gasp.

“You’re saying my _grounded son_  brought over his boyfriend?” another voice called sternly.

“I mean, I can kick him out, if you want,” Lance said cockily, totally ignoring the fact that Keith was frozen solid in the entryway, still standing in the doorway and 100% ready to bolt. “Seeing as you’re totally not desperate to meet him…”

“Ay, mierda Lance, just bring him in here! You’ve disobeyed you’re punishment already.”

Lance looked over at Keith with a smirk. “They’re literally obsessed with you,” he promised. “And hopefully after this, I won’t be grounded anymore,” he added thoughtfully. With that, he reached back and snatched Keith’s hand, shut the door behind them, and dragged Keith into the kitchen.

In there, four people were whispering fervently in Spanish, one of them clearly Lance’s mom and the rest Lance’s siblings. The girl must’ve been Veronica, and the two boys were presumably Marco and Luis.

“Mami, you wanna crush my boyfriend with a hug, or what?”

Lance’s mom jerked away from the kitchen counter, the rest of Lance’s siblings cutting off their whispering as Mrs. McClain broke into a broad smile. “Oh, Keith,” she said, stepping around one of her sons and sweeping Keith up into a hug. “I’ve heard so much about you, it’s so nice to finally meet you!”

One of the boys snorted. “Yeah,” he said. “We’ve heard _so much_  about you.”

“Shut your face, Luis!” said Lance.

“ _Lance_ ,” his mom said warningly, having now pulled back from Keith and patted him twice on the cheek. “Are you hungry, _mijo_? Dinner’ll be ready in a few minutes, you’re more than welcome to stay. _Despite_  Lance being grounded,” she added threateningly, turning to level Lance with a glare.

“I have a really good reason for bringing him over!” Lance protested. Keith looked over at him expectantly. “Whiiich I’ll tell you after we eat! You’re staying, right Keith?”

“I’d love to,” Keith said, directing this at Lance’s mom, who hummed happily and patted Keith’s cheek again.

“Wonderful!” she said, “Now I just have to…” Keith lost track of her rambling as she crossed the kitchen, dealing with pots and pans and expertly avoiding her children sprawled out around the counter.

Veronica, seated on the island, leaned forward and said, “Aren’t you gonna introduce us, _idioto_?”

Lance flipped her the bird, which his mom saw, reprimanding him in Spanish.

“Keith, this is Veronica,” Lance said grandly, gesturing to his sister. “She’s a year older than me and is much eviller than she looks.” Veronica scoffed, trying to reach out and smack Lance’s head, but he ducked without pausing in his introductions. “And this here is Marco. He’s three years older than me and I’m definitely his favorite, no matter what anyone else says,” Lance continued, speaking over his siblings’ protests. Finally, “Luis is four years older than me and specializes in embarrassing me always. Never listen to anything he says. And everyone, this is Keith, my wonderful boyfriend.”

A chorus of “nice to meet you”s rang out and Keith did his best to repeat the sentiment, only jumping a little when Lance retreated to his side and wrapped an arm around his waist.

“Keith,” Marco said abruptly, the second their introductions were truly done, and Keith blinked in his direction, surprised. “Can we help you do something on your wishlist?”

Keith’s eyes widened, his face growing hot, as Lance spluttered incomprehensibly beside him. “ _Marco_ ,” he hissed.

“What?!” Marco said.

“Uh, I don’t know if there’s anything we could do…” Keith began, trying to ease over his embarrassment and Lance’s obvious horror at having been caught informing his siblings of his wishlist.

“Is ‘ride a roller coaster’ on there?” Veronica interrupted.

“No?”

“‘Cause you’ve already rode one?”

“Because I don’t _want_  to ride one,” Keith corrected, and each McClain sibling gasped in the same exact tone and pitch, as if Keith had just insulted their mother or something

“Keith, you’re a disgrace,” Lance decided, looking at him importantly. And then his hand was shoving itself into Keith’s pocket — “Hey!” — and he was pulling his list out and flattening it on the counter behind him, away from his siblings’ prying eyes. There was the click of a pen, a few seconds of scribbling, and then Lance was holding Keith’s wishlist back out to him, folded once again.

“It’s on there now,” Lance said, “which means now you’re gonna have to do it.”

“You’re the worst.”

“Don’t worry,” Lance said. “I’ll go with you. I’ll hold your hand.”

Dinner was ready in no time and Lance’s mom ushered them all into the next room, absolutely refusing to let Keith serve anything for himself and making his entire plate for him.

“How was school today?” she asked when she finally sat down, everyone else having already begun scarfing down their meals. Luis and Marco seemed to be trying to see who could finish their meal first.

Keith and Lance exchanged a glance, both knowing the answer to that question already. They’d gotten in a fight at lunch and Keith had caught Lance being blackmailed at the end of the day. It kind of couldn’t have been any worse.

“Good,” Lance settled for saying. His mom settled him with an unimpressed stare.

“Lance baked us cupcakes,” Keith chimed in with a small smile. “So, yeah. It was good.”

“Except for _I_  baked them,” Veronica said, earning a glare from Lance.

“I helped!”

“I mean sure, if eating the batter counts as helping—”

“ _I did more than that_!”

“Hey!” Mrs. McClain said sharply. “I’m sure Keith doesn’t want to hear your bickering.”

“Keith loves my bickering,” Lance muttered under his breath, making Keith have to repress a snort.

The conversation continued easily without him, Keith mostly letting everyone else talk and only chiming in when he was actually asked something. Lance was the exact opposite, however, practically bouncing in his seat with impatience for his turn to talk. He kept getting glared at for interrupting.

“Did you take your meds today, Lance?” Marco asked at one point, not unkindly. He asked it quietly while Luis was telling Mrs. McClain about his day at work, Veronica interjecting with funny comments.

“I may have forgotten,” Lance lied, and Marco smiled ruefully.

“Maybe you should set an alarm,” he suggested.

“Yeah, that’d be smart,” Lance agreed.

And then forks were clinking against empty plates and the true reason Keith was even there with Lance was growing closer and closer to being realized.

“So, Lance,” his mom said the second conversation ceased to a halt, everyone’s food finished. “Are you going to explain why you ignored the rules of your grounding?” she asked, not one to beat around the bush.

“Of course,” Lance said immediately. And then they all sat there in silence, Lance pursing his lips and playing with his silverware and letting his eyes scan the edges of the room.

“Any time now, Lance,” his mother encouraged sternly, and Lance puffed his cheeks out, raising his eyebrows as he released the air through his lips.

“Oh, you meant now?” he said, playing dumb. His mother’s eyes narrowed.

“Lance…” she warned.

“Right,” Lance said, growing more obviously anxious with every passing moment. “Right. Right, right, right.” Keith could hear his socked feet tapping on the ground, could see his fingers twisting in the material of the table cloth, and it was with hardly any thought that he reached over and set a hand on Lance’s knee, stopping his leg’s shaking. He didn’t catch Lance’s surprised glance at him, already looking towards his mother.

“It’s not Lance’s fault his grades are slipping,” Keith began, and Mrs. McClain’s expression darkened.

“It is entirely his responsibility,” she argued. “If he can’t handle being in a relationship _and_  maintaining his grades—”

“ _Mami_ ,” Lance interrupted with a whine, his fingers scooting underneath Keith’s hand still resting on his knee and squeezing his hand in support. “I told you it’s not like that!”

“Then what is it like, _mijo_?”

Lance’s lips clamped shut, his palm sweaty in Keith’s grasp, and Keith cleared his throat. “He’s being blackmailed,” he said without preamble.

Across the table, someone’s silverware clattered. Lance’s mom blinked once, slowly.

“I…” she started. “I’m… What?”

Keith glanced at Lance, but Lance’s lip was still anchored firmly between his teeth, his knee having taken to bouncing again underneath their interlocked hands. Keith continued. “It’s Mr. Iverson,” Keith said. “He’s been taking Lance’s Adderall.”

“ _Lance_ ,” his mother breathed, her voice barely a whisper. “Is this true?”

Lance sniffed loudly, except he wasn’t actually crying. “Yeah,” he muttered. “He said he’d out Keith if I didn’t keep giving it to him. He wants more this Friday…”

Lance’s mom said something furiously under her breath in Spanish.

“Out him? Don’t people already know you and Keith are dating?” Marco said, his voice quiet to fit the hushed atmosphere that’d taken over the dining room.

“He wouldn’t out him for _that_ , idiot,” Lance said, and Marco’s eyes widened, his mouth dropping open.

“Oh yeah,” he said immediately after. “Fuck, that’s a lot of pressure.” Despite the whole situation, Keith felt weirdly warm in his chest. He hadn’t known whether Lance had actually told his family that Keith was trans, but apparently he had. Relief blossomed inside of him overwhelmingly, realizing he’d already been totally and completely accepted without even knowing it.

He had to resist the urge to snort, though. After all, Lance had told them not only about him being trans, but about his wishlist too. Was there anything he kept to himself?

…Besides the being blackmailed thing?

“Mami?” Veronica spoke up. “What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to go to the school board, is what we’re going to do,” Mrs. McClain growled. “It’ll be difficult without actual proof, of course… Teachers seem to have a way of latching on and getting out of trouble when they’ve been working there for so long…”

“Wait, we do have proof,” Keith said, suddenly remembering that he’d yet to mention that. “I was hiding in a wardrobe and took a video.”

“Holy shit,” Luis said, ducking his mother’s swipe and reprimandation of “ _Luis_.”

“Show it,” Marco said suddenly, and Keith glanced to Lance automatically, asking for his permission more than anything else, but Lance was already nodding. He was eyeing Keith’s phone himself, looking particularly curious.

Keith typed in his password and opened his camera roll, clicking on the video and setting it down on the table before them. When it first started you couldn’t see anything, the screen completely black, but you could hear Keith’s breathing, the phone still pretty close to his face. And then a strip of light was pushed across the screen, growing bigger as Keith pressed his camera against it, the majority of the screen showing a semi-distant image of Lance and Iverson while the sides of the screen were still black, covered by the wardrobe’s doors.

“— _know you’re smarter than that. You can cook up some little plan to get me what I need, and if you don’t, you know the consequences you’ll face. Are we understood?_ ” Iverson’s voice growled out. Everyone around the table had obviously been knowing what the expect, but that didn’t stop the series of flinches and gasps that emanated around them as everyone was greeted by the same shocking scene Keith had witnessed firsthand.

In the video, Lance was shaking his head. He stammered, saying, “ _I’m — I_ can’t _. I’m already failing all my classes! My mom wants to kill me, my boyf— I just, I’m —_ ” The Lance in the video thrust his hands through his hair, his figure looking incredibly small and defeated before Iverson’s imposing stance. Keith felt his heart clench and throb painfully for him, despite knowing that present-Lance was finally free of carrying this burden alone. “ _There’s no way I can refill my prescription_ —”

Beside him, Lance flinched when the Lance in the video was jabbed in the chest by Iverson. Uncaring for their audience, Keith pulled Lance’s hand up to his face and pressed his lips against his knuckles. “ _Listen here, McClain. You get me what I need by the end of the week or you’ll face the consequences. That enough inspiration for you?_ ” Iverson threatened.

The recording stopped a few seconds later, after they were forced to witness Lance collapsing into a desk and sobbing into an enclosed fist. In the silence that came with the video’s end, the loud sniffle that followed was obvious, and Keith found himself looking at Lance’s mom in surprise, though not entirely sure why he felt surprised in the first place. The whole scene had almost made him want to cry, too.

“Oh, my baby,” Mrs. McClain said softly, standing up and circling the table in order to stand behind Lance’s chair. She bent over him, an arm encircling his chest as her lips pressed against his temple, another of her hands running comfortingly up and down his arm. It was a good thing, too, because Lance was shaking now.

“We’ll get this all sorted out,” Lance’s mom promised, pressing another kiss to his temple before standing up, her hands making themselves at home in his hair, brushing it back and pulling on the strands in an attempt to comfort him for something she hadn’t been there to witness. “You don’t have to worry about this anymore.”

Lance’s siblings all looked teary-eyed themselves, but it was Luis who spoke up. “I guarantee they’ll expunge all your bad grades,” he said seriously. “After this, they’ll be getting enough heat for having had a teacher like Iverson as it is. They won’t want us yelling at them about the unfairness of it all, too.”

“You really think so?” Lance asked quietly, his voice bleeding with hope. “I thought—” he cut himself off with a loud breath, as if he were holding back a sob. “I thought I wouldn’t be able to get into any colleges anymore,” he admitted weakly.

“Oh, _mijo_ ,” his mom said sadly, rocking back and forth now and making Lance’s upper body move with her. “You don’t have to worry anymore,” she repeated. “We’ll get everything taken care of, okay? First thing tomorrow morning.”

“Okay,” Lance whispered, and then he stood up and let his mom pull him into a hug. Afterwards, he pulled back and wiped his face, taking a deep breath. “I’m gonna bring Keith up to my room now.”

Mrs. McClain’s eyes narrowed. “I can trust you two’ll behave…?”

“We’re just gonna look at old yearbooks, jeez!” Lance said, pulling out of her arms and plopping a hand in Keith’s hair, which he tugged on as he said, “Let’s go, Mullet.”

“Let go of my hair!” Keith protested, but he stood up and followed him anyway, letting Lance grab his hand and tug him up the stairs and into his room.

Lance’s room was a lot less messy than Keith had been expecting, though that meant it was still pretty messy.

“Sorry,” Lance said the second they entered, kicking shirts and pants out of the center of the room and against the walls. His bed was unmade and his desk cluttered, the walls covered in posters.

Keith stood in the middle of the room, feeling kind of unsure what to do with himself, as Lance ducked down beside an old bookcase and yanked out three middle school yearbooks.

“Ready?” Lance said, turning to grin at him, and Keith rolled his eyes. Lance strode across the room and plopped onto his bed, Keith wasting no time in following him there.

He’d just barely managed to scoot up next to Lance before Lance was wrapping an arm around him and pulling him in close.

“Here, I’ll show you mine first,” Lance said, grabbing their sixth grade yearbook and letting it fall open on his lap. He fumbled through the pages before stopping with an “Aha!” and presenting it to Keith, his finger pointing at one of the tiny squares on the page.

And in the tiny square was a tiny Lance, smiling so hard his eyes were practically closed, his chin tipped upward with his effort. Keith snorted, yanking the yearbook out of Lance’s hands and holding it closer to his face for a better look.

“Oh my God,” he said, laughing under his breath. And then, “You’re so cute.”

“My boyfriend thinks I’m cute!” Lance exclaimed, turning and pressing his face into Keith’s cheek as he did, his lips moving against his skin.

“Shut up.”

“Show me yours, babe.”

“That sounds wrong.”

“I know you love it.” 

Keith ignored his flushed skin, flipping back to the previous page and scanning the rows for his face. He found it — a picture of him with choppy, chin-length hair (of his own doing) where he was glaring at the camera. He could still remember ignoring the camera man as he’d begged him to smile.

“Okay,” Keith said. “There I am,” he pointed.

Lance took one look at him and gasped. “Keith! I totally recognize you!”

“Really?” Keith scoffed.

“Yeah, dude! Holy shit. I thought you were so cool! You were such a badass.”

“You’re lying…”

“Not at all,” Lance assured him, grinning widely now. “We had science together in sixth grade, remember? And when our class was dissecting those frogs you tried to steal one.”

Keith coughed, having choked on his own spit solely out of surprise. He’d almost forgotten about that, for one thing, and for another — he couldn’t believe Lance remembered it! And that he’d even had any clue who Keith was.

“I wanted to put it under my foster sister’s pillow,” Keith explained. “My foster parents at the time weren’t _too_  bad, but their daughter fucking sucked.”

As Keith spoke, Lance slid the yearbook away and opened up the one from the following year. Again, Lance looked adorable and happy, and again, Keith had leveled the camera with a glare. This time his hair was longer, though it was pulled back in the picture. He’d had another foster family that year, things having not “worked out” with the previous one, and they’d been especially strict with his gender identity, wanting him to look and act a certain way despite his determination not to.

Keith explained as much to Lance, who pulled him closer and pressed a kiss against his cheek.

“I don’t know if I’ll be in that one,” Keith said minutes later when Lance went to grab the eighth grade yearbook.

“How come?”

“That’s the year I started fostering with Deb and Sherry,” Keith explained. “They pulled me out about halfway through the year and let me do online schooling.”

But it turned out Keith _was_  in the yearbook, his hair choppy again and for once he wasn’t glaring at the camera. He wasn’t smiling, but he didn’t look like he was trying to eviscerate the photographer, either.

“I can’t believe we went to the same middle school,” Lance said after showing Keith his picture, wherein he finally got his chin down, though his smile was no less wide. “Did you know who I was right away? Or did you realize it later?”

“Right away,” Keith admitted. “I was afraid you would recognize me, at first.” Lance’s fingers were trailing through his hair, gentle against the soft strands.

“Yeah? So you’re glad it took this long?” Lance asked. He was holding Keith so close, his words ghosting over his skin, and still Keith wanted to be closer.

“Well now that I actually know you I know it wouldn’t have mattered if you’d found out that day,” Keith said. “But I’m happy with the way things have played out between us, yeah.”

“Aww,” Lance said obnoxiously, because he was a jerk, before pushing their yearbooks aside so he could slide onto Keith’s lap. There, he grinned down at Keith and tilted his head up, letting their lips slide comfortably together. Somehow, he was still able to take Keith’s breath away that easily.

Keith’s hands wound up on Lance’s hips, pulling him closer, and Lance had a hand buried in the back of his hair, tugging on it whenever Keith tried to assume too much control. By the time they pulled away, they were both flushed with shiny lips, faces still close together as they caught their breath. One of Lance’s hands had somehow ended up curled around Keith’s waistband, his knuckles brushing against Keith’s lower stomach, and he disentangled himself with a blush.

“Ugh, I wanna keep kissing you,” Lance muttered, his lips against Keith’s jaw. Keith knew exactly what it felt like to have Lance’s lips there, so he tilted his head back and let out a sigh when Lance actually appeased his silent request, lips and tongue working smoothly and gently over the sensitive skin just under his jaw.

“Then keep kissing me,” Keith finally mustered up the brains to answer, his fingers tightening in Lance’s hip as he _sucked_.

“Can’t,” Lance said regretfully. “Not here. My mom would kill me if she walked in.”

Keith sighed, pouting when Lance pulled away and rolled to the side, still facing Keith. “I could come over tomorrow, though,” he said, eyebrows raised expectantly. “If I don’t have to go to detention anymore, that is.”

“ _Please_  come over,” Keith said, scooting down on the bed so that his head shared the same pillow as Lance’s. “I feel like I haven’t seen you outside of school in forever.”

“Okay,” Lance said, grinning, and his hand cropped up in the space between them and cupped Keith’s cheek. His thumb pulled on his lower lip, and Keith bared his teeth jokingly, pretending to bite it. Lance actually stuck his finger in his mouth, then, making Keith jerk backwards in revulsion, and it was with a laugh that Lance came with him, pinning him to the bed and whooping triumphantly.

\--

“This… is weird,” Hunk said eloquently, which pretty much summed everything up. Lance had come into school early, equipped with Keith’s video and a very angry and righteous mother, and long before the first bell had even rung Iverson had been sacked. Lance had been sending updates in their group chat throughout the whole thing, ranging from _‘ugh the school board people are seeing me crying in this video :/// EMBARRASSING !!!’_  to _‘THEY’RE SAYING THEY’RE GONNA FIRE IVERSON???? A BLESSED DAY????????’._

By the time Hunk had picked up Keith and Pidge and brought them to school, Lance had been standing near the doors waiting for them, grinning hugely at their approach. He’d told them all about it, about his mom’s anger and the school board’s disgust and how his bad grades were being expunged as they spoke. Apparently Iverson had already been contacted and told not to come into school, and that he’d be able to pick up all his stuff during the weekend when no students were around. Plus, Lance had added happily, if Keith suddenly found himself outed to the school Iverson would find himself facing an even bigger legal punishment, so he was practically in the clear.

Now, the first bell still having yet to ring, the four of them were privy to the information as to why all the teachers around the school were acting strangely. They kept coming across groups of them huddled in the hallways, whispering fervently, and sometimes the teachers caught sight of them. Whenever that happened, their eyes all widened as they looked at Lance, their gazes occasionally sliding with the same shocked and pitying expression to Keith. It was nuts.

“I can’t believe Iverson’s really fired,” Pidge muttered after passing the latest group of huddled teachers. “Like… Lance _actually_  got him fired. After four years of threatening to do it.”

“After four years of being blackmailed,” Lance added angelically, his tone a juxtaposition to his words. Keith slipped his hand into Lance’s, squeezing gently, and Lance squeezed back, looking over at him with a soft smile.

“I can’t believe we never noticed something was up,” Hunk said sadly, and not for the first time. After Keith had gone home the night before, having been walked to his car by Lance, which had totally just been a guise so that the two of them could make out in the driveway, Lance had updated both Pidge and Hunk on the entire situation in their group chat. They’d all ended up staying up really late, their conversation lasting for hours as they’d hashed out all the details of the day.

“I told you to stop worrying about that, buddy,” Lance said, reaching out to pat Hunk’s back. Then he turned to Keith with a grin. “Plus, this is a means for celebration! Keith? I think you have a certain something to cross off?”

“What?”

“You gonna make me dig around in your pants for your list here? ‘Cause I will.”

Keith flushed, pulling out his list and handing it over to Lance with an odd air of familiarity. Pidge and Hunk glanced curiously at each other.

“What’s that?” Hunk asked, nosy as ever, not that Keith blamed him when a weird paper transaction was happening right in front of him.

“None of your business,” Lance said, turning to look at him with a wink. And then he flattened the list against Keith’s chest, pulling a pen out of his pocket (“You don’t keep that in your bag?” Keith had asked once, watching him pull it out of his pocket. “Keith, I barely keep my homework in my bag.”), and yanked the cap off with his teeth. Keith glanced down, watching as Lance crossed out _'_ _Operation: The Seniors Say So-Long!’_  against his chest.

“There,” Lance said triumphantly immediately after, still speaking around the pen cap. Keith reached forward and plucked it out of his mouth as Lance refolded his wishlist. They did a trade.

“Well that was weird,” Pidge commented from beside them. Lance wrapped an arm around Keith’s waist, tugging him into his side as they started off down the hall.

“Don’t insult what you don’t understand, Pidgey,” he said, turning to grin at her.

Pidge scoffed. “When it comes to you two? I’d pick on you for anything.”

Lance slapped his hand over his heart, feigning offense, and Keith just tried to keep the fond expression he was surely wearing to a bare minimum, afraid he was looking particularly lovestruck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think ??? there’s really only one more chapter after this ?????? unless i’m hit with a sudden urge to add another plotline. soo anyway if you have any questions/concerns about little things you’ve noticed and want to see addressed/make sure they get wrapped up pls feel free to comment about them!!! sometimes there are little things you guys think about that i’ve forgotten ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ 
> 
> i’m hoping to have the next chapter out soon !! i leave for college in 17 days (side note: AAAAAAAAA !!!!!) and defs want to have this project wrapped up so i don’t feel overwhelmed when i’m doing both homework and whatever other fics i begin despite my New Responsibilities. lmao catch me writing fic in between classes !!
> 
> oh yeah and you should follow me on twitter (@jacecares) and tumblr (@jilliancares) if you're not already!!! i s2g my tweets are Quality you totally won't regret it *angel emoji*


	9. ride a roller coaster!!!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What,” Keith said flatly. And then Shiro pursed his lips. Looked around the room. Puffed out his cheek.
> 
> Threw a box of condoms onto Keith’s bed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> smut lies ahead! thar she blows!

Keith liked to think his life was pretty good, you know?

After all, he had a loving family. Two wonderful moms that’d swooped in when he was being tossed around in foster care and plucked him right out of the system, equipped and ready to love him. They’d come with Shiro, of course, who’d picked and pried his way right through all of Keith’s expertly built walls until he actually found himself opening up around him, practically one of the first friends he’d ever truly had.

He lived in a world that, while sometimes cruel, was mostly loving and caring. He’d stumbled across countless stories and articles online of people just like him. Had gained access to the hormone that actually made him feel like himself.

Not to mention he had wonderful friends, ones that’d laid eyes on him on his first day of school and taken him right under their wing, despite the fact that it was their senior year and one really needed new friends that far into high school. Friends who loved Keith, who made him laugh and included him and knew all these stupid little things about him, his randoms likes and dislikes, that Keith could hardly remember telling them about but felt giddy at the thought that they _knew_.

And then there was Lance. Lance, who’d suffered through the horrible stress of being blackmailed for the sake of Keith. Lance, who would smile at Keith so softly he could swear something inside himself was melting. Lance, whose laugh made Keith weak, whose grin could cut glass, whose kindness and consideration was so unlike anyone else’s, so above and beyond and completely selfless.

Yeah, looking at all that, Keith’s life was pretty great. But then there were moments that made all that gooey sentimental crap shrivel up and die inside him.

“Hey, Keith,” Shiro said, stepping into his room and kicking his door shut. That in and of itself was surprising enough. Shiro never shut his own bedroom door and he was notoriously bad for forgetting to close Keith’s whenever he happened to leave his room, leaving Keith yelling after him and begging him to come back and close it for him. So seeing Shiro shut the door rather purposefully had Keith sitting up immediately, eyes narrowed warily.

“What’s up, Shiro?” he said, trying to keep a cool front. No need to let Shiro know what was really going on inside his mind, which was really just a whole lot of frantic scrambling and panicking and, _oh God, did he hear Lance climb through my window last week? We didn’t even do anything! Just cuddled!_

“I have something for you,” Shiro said, shifting a bit uncomfortably on his feet. And Shiro didn’t shift uncomfortably. He was always confident, always sure of himself, and seeing the out of place movement had Keith stiffening where he sat, really, _really_  sure he wasn’t going to like whatever was about to happen.

“What,” Keith said flatly. And then Shiro pursed his lips. Looked around the room. Puffed out his cheek.

Threw a box of condoms onto Keith’s bed.

“ _Ah_!” Keith screamed, scooting away from them and staring in mortified horror. “Shiro what the fuck!”

Shiro, looking as red in the face as Keith felt, gestured uselessly. “I’m just being a good big brother, okay?! I know you and Lance have been getting… intimate…”

“God, Shiro, shut the fuck up!” Keith yelled, his face mostly hidden behind his hands, though he couldn’t help peeking between his fingers.

“It’s not a big deal!” Shiro tried to protest, despite the fact that he looked as, if not more, embarrassed than Keith. “I’m just trying to look out for you!”

“Well, don’t!” Keith huffed. The condoms were still just sitting there on the bed, which was excruciating, so he grabbed a pillow and threw it over top of them. “That’s not… Why would _I_ have the condoms, anyway? I don’t even have a dick!”

“It’s always good to be prepared,” Shiro said sternly, now looking serious, and Keith was just shaking his head, already trying to clear this entire encounter from his head.

“Thanks, but no thanks,” he said quickly. “Just… take them back,” he insisted, shoving his hand under the pillow and holding them out to Shiro. It felt like they were burning in his hand.

“Nuh-uh,” Shiro said. “Those are for you.”

“I don’t _want_  them.”

“But you need them.”

“Shiro!”

Shiro didn’t listen, just spun around on the spot and left the room. That left Keith sitting in his bed holding a box of condoms, his face losing none of its heat despite his now lack of audience. The condoms were _definitely_  burning a hole through his hand now and it was in a panic that he threw open his bedside draw and threw them in there, slamming it back shut.

And then he opened it up again, trying his best to ignore the entire implication surrounding the condoms as he rearranged the drawer, shoving the condoms to the back and piling all the random crap in his drawer over and around it. Ugh, how humiliating. Keith might never recover.

And maybe he actually never _would_  recover, because his stupid mind kept snapping back to that stupid encounter. Like now.

“Keith,” someone was saying, sounding like it wasn’t the first time they’d said his name. “ _Keith_.”

“Huh?” Keith said suddenly, jerking so that he was sitting up straight and turning to look at who exactly was talking to him.

“It’s your turn,” Hunk said, gesturing at Keith with his eyebrows raised. And _fuck_. Poker was literally the worst game to zone out in, what had he been thinking?! And they were betting with real stuff now, too. Not actual money, because none of them really had enough of that for themselves in the first place, but other dumb things. Passwords to social media accounts and offers to do the others’ homework. Now they were betting dares too. Right now Keith had about three dares in the pot, meaning if he lost whoever won could dare him to do three things.

Keith wasn’t too bad at poker despite having only just learned how to play that night. It was really all about observation, noticing the way Hunk’s eyes widened at a good hand or Pidge rearranged her cards. Of course, Keith had been zoned out the last however long and hadn’t been observing anyone at all. Apparently both Pidge and Hunk had folded this round meanwhile Lance was still going strong, looking at Keith expectantly. Raise or fold?

If he’d been paying attention he might’ve had a better idea of what he wanted to do. His hand wasn’t all that great but it could’ve been better than the Lance’s. Had Lance raised? He was looking at Keith, the corner of his mouth pulled up in a smirk. He looked confident. Or was he bluffing?

“Raise,” Keith said, because Lance was totally full of shit, right? He put two nickels in the middle, what they were using in replacement of poker chips. The equivalent of two more dares. Now he had five dares in the pot…

“Okay,” Lance sang, his eyes flashing with excitement, and something within Keith clenched. Fuck, was his hand really that good? Or was he bluffing?! “I’ll match it.” Keith’s eyes widened and Lance threw two nickels into the center as well. He’d already put a lot of things in there throughout the round… dares and passwords and all other sorts of dumb little things…

“Fuck,” Keith said, his confidence failing him. He couldn’t afford to put any more nickels in there. “I fold,” he added, throwing his cards onto the carpet.

Lance whooped, scooping the pot towards him and ignoring everyone’s grumbling. He’d have a lot of dares to doll out the rest of the night.

Stupid Shiro. This was all his fault.

Although… it was also thanks to him that their parents were out of the house in the first place. Or at least, Keith was pretty sure that was the case, anyway. It was because of him that they’d wanted to go out on that date tonight, Shiro having happened to have mentioned the specials’ deal going on at their favorite restaurant, which just conveniently happened to be located next to the movie theater, which was showcasing this new movie they wanted to see…

And then Shiro had gone over to a friend’s house. It was all unbelievably unsubtle, and Keith didn't know what to make of it. Shiro had known Keith’s friends would be coming over that night, a blessed, calm Saturday after all the turmoil they’d faced during the last few weeks, countless people having berated them about Lance and the blackmail situation.

But did that mean Shiro expected Lance to end up staying later than both Hunk and Pidge, if he’d made all these… weird accommodations? Did he _want_  them to have sex?

Obviously not, Keith though, his face flushing. Shiro’s glares had given Keith’s a run for their money whenever he’d happened upon him and Lance making any sort of moves on each other, even if they were just cuddling, watching a show together on Keith’s laptop. As much as Keith wanted to think Shiro was just trying to do something nice and finally get everyone out of their hair, Keith was pretty sure this was more like a message. A, _you have tonight only, so by God never let me see Lance sucking on your neck ever again._

“I don’t wanna play another round,” Pidge grumbled as Lance rolled a nickel expertly across his knuckles. Keith had no idea how he was doing it, but he was sure he’d learned it simply to show off in situations like these. It rolled end over end, sticking briefly in the crevices between his fingers before reaching his pinky and coming right back again. Show off.

“Yeah,” Hunk agreed. “I’ve lost enough from all those rounds combined, thank you very much.”

“Hey, you won a couple too!” Lance pointed out, but that didn’t seem to lift Hunk’s mood. He was probably still pouting from having to squirt mustard directly in his mouth, courtesy of Pidge.

“Let’s just doll out the winnings,” Pidge grumbled, which they then went about doing. Lance prescribing different assortments of homework to both Pidge and Hunk, and it wasn’t long before all that was left between them were their dares. One for Hunk, who’d always used dares as a last resort, two for Pidge, who claimed she was especially wary of Lance’s dares, and five for Keith, because he hadn’t had much else he could offer anyway.

“Keith!” Lance said grandly, turning to face him with his hands on his knees.

“Remember that I can still break up with you,” Keith threatened, making Pidge snort across the circle.

“Good one,” said Hunk.

“ _I dare you_ ,” Lance continued dramatically, electing to ignore him completely, “to gimme a kiss,” he finished innocently, pursing his lips comically and closing his eyes.

“That’s the worst dare I’ve ever heard,” Pidge grumbled. “He already _wants_  to kiss you.”

Lance ignored her, although he did peek an eye open, looking at Keith expectantly. Keith rolled his eyes but obediently shuffled forward on his knees, pressing a quick peck to his boyfriend’s lips who took to grinning immediately after. Pidge muttered something about PDA.

Lance’s dares were pretty tame, thankfully. He dared Hunk to go and like a picture a few weeks old from this girl he was apparently crushing on and he had Pidge model some of Keith’s “ugliest clothes” (“Wow, thanks for that, Lance.”) before making her take a shot of lemon juice. After that, though, he claimed he couldn’t think of any more dares, and it was unanimously decided that he could save the rest of his dares for Keith for whenever he could think of them. It was a little unsettling, knowing Lance could dare him to do four more things whenever he wanted, but it wasn’t like Keith didn’t trust him. It’d probably just be something simple, too, like the two of them laying in bed and Lance daring him to go get him a glass of water, too lazy to get up.

In any case, it wasn’t long before Hunk’s curfew was coming up and he was gathering his stuff, ready to take Lance and Pidge home with him as he left. Keith was cleaning up, gathering the trash from their snacks and the remnants from the games they’d played when Lance was suddenly behind him, arms wrapping around his waist and lips pressing against his ear. “I have a dare for you,” he murmured quietly, Hunk and Pidge too wrapped up in their conversation to notice.

“What is it?” Keith asked.

Lance hummed, his nose brushing against Keith’s ear. “I dare you to let me sleepover.”

Keith felt himself stiffen in Lance’s arms, his face growing warm. He could still feel Lance’s lips against his ear. Neither Hunk nor Pidge were paying attention to them, arguing with each other about where Hunk had put his car keys.

“Okay,” Keith answered quietly, leaning back a little bit harder into Lance’s embrace. Lance tightened his arms accordingly, his warm sigh sending shivers all the way down Keith’s spine.

“ _Aha_!” Pidge exclaimed, holding up Hunk’s keys after having fished them out from under the bed. “Told you I didn’t hide them!”

“ _You_  could’ve put them there —”

“I’ll fight you Hunk, don’t think I won’t,” Pidge threatened. And then she turned in place. “Lance? We’re leaving.”

“Um, yeah, about that…” Lance said, his chin now resting firmly on Keith’s shoulder. “I think I’m gonna sleepover.”

Pidge wrinkled her nose. “Gross.”

Keith’s face grew a thousand times hotter. “ _That’s_  — _it’s not_ —” he stuttered.

“Yeah, yeah, I don’t wanna know,” Pidge interrupted. “Hunk? Take me home. I need to ruin my sleep schedule by reading random Wikipedia articles until the early morning.”

 

Shaking his head, Hunk led the way, opening the door to Keith’s bedroom and responding to Pidge as he stepped into to the hall. “I’ve never gotten the appeal of that,” he muttered.

“Come on,” Keith said, shaking off his embarrassment and stepping out of Lance’s grasp as he followed their friends downstairs. Lance whined but followed anyway, waiting until they were all off the stairs so he could jump to the floor from the fifth step. Keith rolled his eyes at his antics, though he turned away before Lance could see him smiling.

“Thanks for having us,” Hunk said, interrupting the middle of whatever he’d been saying to Pidge as he unlocked the front door.

“Yeah, thanks for having us,” Pidge echoed. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”

Lance frowned. “Aren’t you asexual?”

“Exactly.”

Lance snorted, and Keith went to shove Pidge, who danced out of the way and hid behind Hunk.

“See you guys tomorrow, maybe?” Hunk said as he started backing towards the edge of the porch. “Maybe we could all get lunch or something. Or froyo.”

“I’m down!” Lance said immediately, leaning past Keith out the door and hanging onto the handle. “And Keith’s down too. I’ll bring ‘im.”

“I’m right here,” Keith said.

“Yep, and tomorrow you’ll be at FroYummies.”

“Is it actually called that?”

“Sadly,” Pidge said from behind Hunk, and then she was tugging on his arm, whining about how the mysteries of the internet were calling her, and Hunk finally stepped off the porch. Keith and Lance watched them to make sure they actually got to their car safely, and then they closed and locked the front door behind them, suddenly all alone.

Keith didn’t know what exactly he’d been expecting: for the entire atmosphere to shift, maybe. For it to suddenly click in his brain that they were together and alone for the first time in forever and for Lance to slam him against the door or something.

Instead, Lance was Lance.

“Do you have any water bottles?” he asked, already several strides away from Keith and turning into the kitchen. By the time Keith caught up with him, Lance was closing the fridge and triumphantly holding two bottles of water aloft, one of which he tossed to Keith. “Let’s cuddle and watch TV,” he added immediately, striding past Keith but catching his hand along the way and tugging him all the way up to his own bedroom.

Lance flicked off the light and kicked the door shut behind them, leaving them to navigate to Keith’s bed in the dark. They tumbled into it together, Keith with a yelp when his sweatshirt managed to slide up, Lance’s cold water bottle somehow finding its way against his bare skin.

“Shit, sorry,” Lance murmured, moving the water out of the way and pulling Keith’s laptop onto his lap. He typed in the password without even stopping to think about it, which was in no way odd or foreign but left Keith with the realization that he couldn’t even remember when he’d told Lance the password. And then Lance was clicking on _Friends_  and putting the computer on Keith, scooting closer to him.

“Can you hold it, actually?” Keith said, just before Lance made himself comfy and plopped his head down on Keith’s chest. “I’m not wearing a binder.”

“Of course,” Lance said, sitting up a bit and adjusting the laptop. Keith curled into Lance, then, his head on his chest and an arm thrown over Lance’s middle.

The room wasn’t so dark anymore. Not with the light of the screen and their now-adjusted eyes, used to the moonlight filtering in through the slats of the blinds. It was a good atmosphere. Comfortable, soft. That didn’t mean Keith minded when it changed, though.

They’d changed positions at some point, sometime after starting the second episode, maybe, with the both of them on their sides, the laptop propped up on a pillow in front of them. Lance was spooning Keith, his fingers having been rubbing unrecognizable patterns over his stomach for forever now, and Keith had stopped concentrating on what was actually happening on the screen when Lance’s mouth had joined the mix. At first it’d just been soft, barely there kisses against the side of his neck, Lance having been propping himself up with an elbow, but the kisses weren’t so soft or barely there anymore.

He was blatantly sucking on Keith’s skin, kissing up and down the length of his neck as his fingers moved more sensually over his stomach.

Growing tired of the teasing, Keith turned in Lance’s arms, finally capturing his lips between his own and humming as Lance pulled him closer, a hand splayed against his lower back. One of Lance’s legs slid between his own and Keith couldn’t help pressing up against it, sighing into Lance’s mouth at the pressure it granted him.

Lance was kissing him deeper now. Faster. His tongue thoroughly exploring Keith’s mouth as his hands did the same with his body, sliding up his entire back, gliding over his butt, pausing at and gripping the back of his thigh. Keith’s breath shuddered when their lips parted, giving them a rare moment to breathe, and he felt his face warm as he realized he was grinding up against Lance’s leg unintentionally.

Still breathing heavily, Lance didn’t let that deter him as he pushed Keith onto his back, sliding on top of him as his lips played against his ear, his tongue tracing the shell. His hand slid over Keith’s body, down his stomach and closer to the waistband of his sweatpants, and Keith was hit with a sudden bout of anxiety.

“Wait,” he panted, Lance immediately retracting his hands and pushing himself up on his elbows, so that he was hovering above Keith instead of straight laying on him.

“Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” he said immediately, eyes wide and filled with worry. “Want to stop?”

“No,” Keith said quickly, a hand coming up to hold onto Lance’s arm as if he’d pull away regardless. “It’s just, um… You know…” he said, his voice wavering. It was stupid, right? To be worried about this? To be scared of what Lance would think of his genitals? “You know I don’t have a…”

Lance blinked. His eyebrows furrowed. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” he asked, sounding slightly amused. Keith silently tried to inform the bed that it could swallow him now if it wanted.

“Yes,” Keith said, unable to help his slight pout. “I just — I’ve thought about this a lot, and—”

Lips brushing against his, Lance hummed, “Oh? You’ve thought about this a lot?”

Keith’s face grew hotter. “No!” he protested, despite having just admitted the opposite. “ _That’s not what I_ … Oh.” Keith grew distracted, Lance having lowered his lips to his collarbone.

“You were saying?” he hummed.

“Um,” Keith tried, a pathetic attempt, really. His head was tipped back, a hand buried in Lance’s hair. “Uhh…”

“Don’t worry,” Lance told him, coming up to press a kiss beneath his eye. “You don’t need to worry about anything.”

Keith unclenched. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding any of his body tensely, but at Lance’s words, the tension oozed right out of him. He melted beneath his boyfriend, letting himself get wrapped up in another long, heated kiss.

This time, Lance’s hands stayed where they were, stationary on Keith’s sides except for the small movement of his thumbs brushing over his skin. And it wasn’t until minutes later, Keith haven’t somehow built up the courage, that he reached for one of Lance’s hands and started guiding it down his body again.

Lance took the clear approval for what it was, murmuring an additional question against Keith’s lips before letting his hand slip beneath his sweatpants and underwear in one. Keith sucked in a breath, his fingers digging into Lance’s skin as Lance’s moved against him, slow and tentative.

“Tell me if I’m doing this wrong,” Lance murmured against his lips, bulling back a little to look at Keith’s face.

“You’re not,” Keith assured him, grinding up against his hand. Lance smiled, looking oddly pleased, and Keith let a sigh slip from between his lips.

“How far do you wanna go?” Lance asked, still moving his hand against Keith, as if he could possibly concentrate on any conversation when _that_  was happening. “‘Cause I’m fine just doing this, if you want. We can go however slow…”

“I-I don’t care,” Keith said, gasping as Lance dragged his fingers up against Keith. They were moving in circles against his growth, which was dizzying. “We can… we can go all the way, if you want…”

“Really?” Lance said, eyebrows raised. He leaned down for another kiss, chuckling against Keith’s lips. “Let me know if you change your mind.” 

“I won’t,” Keith gasped, and he reached down and grabbed Lance’s hand before he could bring him any closer to the edge.

He sat up, pushing Lance back on the bed and plopping down on his thighs. “Can I?” he asked.

Lance couldn’t seem to answer verbally, settling for nodding vigorously as he propped himself up on his elbows, watching as Keith pulled his pants down, Lance lifting up his butt to help give him access. No longer confined in his pants, Lance’s cock sprang free, and Keith glanced up at Lance before reaching for it, carefully wrapping his fingers along the length. He watched as Lance inhaled, his chest expanding as Keith began to move, his grip light and his movement slow.

“You can,” Lance managed, stopping to swallow. “You can — _ah_ , a bit tighter?”

Keith complied immediately. He tightened his grip, dragging his hand up over Lance, watching as his eyes fluttered. And then Keith let his eyes venture lower, to where his hand was located. He’d never actually seen a dick in real life before. Lance’s was nice. Pretty long, and flushed red at the tip. It leaned a bit to the left and twitched when Keith rubbed a thumb across the top of it.

“That feel good?” Keith asked quickly, looking up at Lance.

“Yeah,” Lance breathed. He sat up, grabbing Keith’s chin and directing him into a kiss as Keith continued to stroke him.

Keith didn’t quite know how, but the next thing he knew Lance was leaning back against the wall and Keith was standing on his knees in front of him. Lance had tugged his pants down to the middle of his thighs and his fingers were going to town on his growth, Keith’s forehead resting on Lance’s shoulder as he panted, trying not to fumble and mess up as he stroked Lance through it all. Although he totally forgot what he was doing when Lance’s hand slid backwards, his fingers tentatively reaching and pressing inside of him, stroking inside of him as Keith gasped, grinding down against his fingers.

“Am I doing this right?” Lance questioned.

“Fuck,” Keith groaned in lieu of a proper response, forgetting Lance’s dick entirely and instead clinging to his shirt, his face turned to the side as he panted against Lance’s neck. His legs began to shake, tired and overwhelmed from the pleasure he was experiencing, and he ended up slumping against Lance’s front, quivering as Lance continued to finger him.

“Guess I’m a natural,” Lance joked, the smirk obvious in his tone.

“Fuck you,” Keith groaned, clenching down around his fingers. Lance’s thumb had sneaked up, was rubbing against his growth even as his other fingers stroked his g-spot.

“Really? I thought you wanted me to do that to you.”

Keith’s brain was a little too scrambled to come up with a proper response, so instead he bit Lance’s neck, though not actually hard enough to hurt. It made Lance laugh, which Keith saw as a bonus, anyway, and then Lance’s fingers were moving inside him a little bit harder, a little bit faster.

“Is it okay if I make you come like this?” Lance asked, his other hand coming up to stroke up Keith’s back, likely slick with sweat underneath his sweatshirt. “I don’t actually have any condoms with me.”

Keith was dazed, on the brink of saying yes and letting Lance do whatever he wanted as long as it continued to feel this good, but then, “Wait!” he gasped. Lance stopped touching him immediately, leaving Keith bucking into thin air and using all his restraint to keep from honest-to-God whining, as he leaned back a bit and said, “I, uh, I have condoms.”

Lance blinked. And smirked. And chuckled. “You _do_?”

Keith didn’t know how this was more embarrassing than literally having Lance’s fingers inside him, but whatever. “I didn’t buy them!” he protested, which led him to having to admit the even more embarrassing truth when Lance’s look turned questioning. “It was, um… Shiro.”

“Oh, God,” Lance said, looking kind of how Keith had felt when Shiro had thrown them at him.

“I know,” Keith muttered, suppressing a shiver. “But, uh. We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Oh, no, I totally want to,” Lance protested immediately, pushing Keith back and letting him plop onto the bed with a yelp as he clambered carelessly over him. “They in here?” Lance asked, already rummaging through his bedside drawer, and then he was shifting a few things around and holding the condoms aloft with a triumphant smirk. “Good hiding place.”

“Fuck off.”

“I’ll fuck _you_ ,” Lance promised with a grin, plopping down on Keith’s lap comfortably. “Speaking of, how are we doing this?”

“Uh…”

“I’m kind of hoping face-to-face, because I love you and the expressions you make, but if you have your heart set on something else I’m down.”

Keith blinked. Gaped. “Did you… Did you just say you loved me?”

Lance’s eyes widened, his gaze connecting with Keith’s and looking just as shocked as him. “Let’s analyze that later!” he said hastily.

Keith giggled, unable to help it, because he was feeling pretty giddy knowing that Lance was in _love_  with him. He couldn’t deny feeling the same, obviously, but he hadn’t been about to blurt it out while talking sex positions. “Okay,” Keith finally agreed, relishing in Lance’s pink cheeks. “And I’m good with face-to-face.”

“Oh, good,” Lance sighed. “You know your lip quivers when you’re getting into it? And the way your breath hitches is fucking adorable.”

“Oh my God,” Keith said.

Lance was leaning over him again. “And the way your voice gets all breathy when you try to talk… And how you can barely concentrate on what I’m saying…”

Keith felt hot all over, embarrassed but in a _good_  way. “Stop talking and just fuck me already,” he said, making Lance huff out a laugh, sitting up again.

“Fine, fine,” he said loftily, although if the state of his cock (still sticking out of his pants) had anything to say, he wasn’t nearly as unaffected as he was pretending to be. “And what about the clothes situation? I know you took off your binder a couple hours ago and I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable, so…”

Keith’s face warmed. Not out of embarrassment but _love_. Just… cherishment. Appreciation for Lance being so fucking considerate all the time.

“Think I’m gonna keep my sweatshirt on,” Keith said, hands coming up to rub against Lance’s thighs. “That okay with you?”

“Definitely,” Lance said. “You ready to get this show on the road?”

Keith scoffed. “As long as you don’t say that again.”

Lance laughed and shimmied out of his shirt immediately, Keith attempting to ignore the sudden dryness of his mouth. It was impossible, however, when Lance ducked down, pressing a kiss against his hipbone before sliding his pants and underwear further down his legs, Keith kicking them the rest of the way off. Lance followed suit, leaving him totally naked and pink cheeked as he settled back into Keith’s lap, apparently liking it there.

“Now,” he said grandly, picking up the box of condoms again. “Let’s figure this out.”

Keith felt his eyebrows inch up his face. “You don’t know how to put on a condom?”

“Do _you_?” Lance said incredulously.

“No, but I don’t have a dick.”

“Touché,” Lance muttered. And then, “Hold on.”

It only took a minute, Lance muttering the instructions to himself as he read the back of the box. Keith reached out and stroked him as he did, making Lance’s breath hitch with surprise, his eyebrows furrowing as he attempted to concentrate on the instructions even as jerked into Keith’s hand.

“O-okay,” he stuttered, having opened the box and pulled out a condom. “I’m gonna need you to stop doing that.”

Keith snorted but retracted his hand, sitting up a bit to watch on Lance put on the condom. His tongue was poking out in concentration and Keith was pretty sure it was illegal to look that cute while sitting naked on someone else’s lap. Somewhere beside them, _Friends_  had stopped playing, the message _Are you still watching?_  having popped up on the screen. Neither of them noticed.

“Tell me if it doesn’t feel right,” Lance instructed after climbing off Keith’s lap so he could instead shuffle in between his legs. Keith spread them more, feeling both flustered and turned on at the same time.

“Okay,” he breathed, his breath hitching as he felt Lance line up against him. Lance looked up at him then, watching his face with intense concentration as he pressed in, probably in an attempt to see whether he was hurting Keith. He wasn’t, but Keith wasn’t sure whether he would actually be able to tell in the first place, because his eyes had glazed over and his mouth had fallen open in the process, his hands holding up Keith’s waist.

“Oh _fuck,_ ” Lance said, his hips flush with Keith’s. “Fuck, Keith, I’m — you good?”

“Yeah,” Keith said, squeezing around Lance experimentally. Lance groaned, low in his throat, and he leaned over Keith, adjusting himself. In a flash, he snagged a pillow from the other side of the bed and shoved it under Keith’s lower back, fucking into Keith shallowly as he did, almost unconsciously.

“You feel so good,” Lance groaned, and then he started to move in earnest, fucking into Keith slowly at first and then faster, harder as they both got into it, panting each other’s names, hands gripping and fingers digging into sweaty body parts.

Although he’d been joking, Lance was right about being naturally good at this. He kept a good rhythm, pressed kisses to Keith’s lips and jaw while he moved. Keith’s sweatshirt had ended up shucked up stomach, probably due to Lance being unable to stop touching him, his hands running up and down his sides, over his butt, between his legs.

Eventually, Keith surprised Lance by pushing him back, Lance momentarily slipping out of him as he rearranged them. Lance went willingly, snagging a pillow to put under his head and letting out a groan as Keith planted himself in his lap, grabbing Lance’s cock and directing it back into himself as he sank down on him.

It was harder to keep up the rhythm himself, he found, but it felt exceedingly good, Lance able to reach deeper inside him this way, when Keith let himself press all the way down on Lance’s lap. His hands were splayed over Lance’s chest, using him as leverage every time he lifted his hips up only to press them back down.

He was close, something that only grew more evident the longer he remained there, unable to properly control his movements. Soon enough he was just bouncing in Lance’s lap, gasping and moaning as he tried to fuck himself, ignoring the obscene sound of their bodies moving together.

“You getting close?” Lance grunted, a low moan escaping him as Keith nodded frantically. And then Lance was reaching up under him, a hand pressing and rubbing against his growth even as he continued to fuck himself on Lance, who helped even more by lifting his hips off the bed, meeting Keith with every thrust.

“ _Ah_ , Lance,” Keith managed, his eyes lidded and hazy as he moved over Lance in a daze, desperate and quick and panting and moaning. Lance rubbed him faster, harder, and Keith managed one or two more good bounces before he was collapsing against Lance, twitching and shaking as Lance continued to rub him through it, another hand running over his back and settling on his butt as Keith moaned against him. He panted through the aftershocks, clinging to Lance, and then he looked up at him in a sweaty daze. “You close?”

“Really close, yeah,” Lance murmured. “How should I—”

“Keep going,” Keith encouraged.

“I — what?”

“Keep going,” Keith insisted. “I might even come a second time.”

Lance’s eyes widened, looking surprised and intrigued, and then he was grabbing Keith and turning him over. It wasn’t like their position before — this time, he was largely wrapped around Keith, one arm under his back and cradling his head and the other wrapped around his torso. Like that, he began fucking into Keith, practically humping him. It still felt good, and Keith wrapped his legs around Lance tight, running his fingers over his skin as Lance grunted and moaned into his neck.

“Y-you gonna come again?” Lance asked, his words hot against Keith’s skin.

Instead of answering him, Keith wormed an arm between their bodies, getting his hand between his legs and rubbing fast and hard as Lance continued to fuck him similarly. He was already close, having just come already, and he found himself nodding against Lance as his movements grew sloppier.

“Come on, Lance,” he encouraged, his free hand tangling itself in his hair. “I wanna feel you come.”

“Fuck!” Lance hissed, and then he was jerking into him with a low moan, his body shaking as Keith followed in suit, clenching over and over again around Lance.

They both came down from it slowly, warm and sweaty and panting against each other. Carefully, Lance pulled out of him, sitting up to tie off the condom and toss it surprisingly accurately into the trash can. He immediately collapsed right back against Keith, humming into his shoulder and tugging him closer.

They enjoyed _maybe_  two minutes of blissful snuggling before they were jerking away from each other and falling into similar states of wide-eyed panic at the sound of the front door slamming shut.

“ _Shit_ ,” Keith cursed, looking around frantically. Their clothes were scattered, somehow, despite Keith not remembering throwing anything anywhere. He could hear talking, and already someone’s footsteps sounded like they were coming up the stairs. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Keith hissed, shoving Lance out of the bed. The two of them scrambled around the room, picking up loose articles of clothing and shoving them into Lance’s arms before Keith pushed him into the closet.

Idiotically, they’d shoved Keith’s pants into the closet with Lance, so Keith ran as silently as possible to his bed and launched himself back into it, pulling the blanket up and over his lap at lightning speed, his laptop casually arranged on his lap with a second to spare.

And then he saw them.

The condoms.

Feeling like he was in a dream, unable to move nearly fast enough, Keith reached for the package, still sitting innocently on top of his comforter, and grabbed it and shoved it under his covers at the last second possible, hoping he wasn’t red-faced as the door handle twisted open.

Deb popped her head into the room. “Hey honey,” she said. “Everyone head home for the night?”

“Yeah, about an hour ago,” Keith answered calmly, 100% surprised by the lack of shakiness in his voice. His heart was pounding so loudly in his chest he was sure she could hear it.

Deb hummed. “Hey, you wanna come downstairs for some leftover popcorn? There’s M&Ms in it,” she sang in an attempt to persuade him. Keith’s body tensed at the very thought of having to explain himself laying pantsless in bed. At least she couldn’t see Lance anywhere. At the very worst it looked like he was... on his own.

“Um, no thanks,” Keith said, making Deb’s eyes widen comically. Keith was obsessed with movie theater popcorn and his entirely family knew it. Scrambling for an excuse, he said, “I, uh, started having cramps. They just went away so I don’t really wanna move…”

Deb frowned. “I’m sorry, baby. Do you still have that heating pad in your closet?” she asked, already stepping towards it as if to look.

“ _No_ ,” Keith practically screeched, blood thundering in his ears in a panic. _Lance was completely naked in there_. Deb looked at him in confusion. “I, uh, left it at Lance’s house. I’ll get him to bring it to me tomorrow.”

“He’s such a good boy,” Deb sighed happily, crossing the room to press a kiss to Keith’s forehead. “And you know I don’t say that often,” she added conspiratorially. Keith laughed despite the anxiety clogging his chest at the fact that she was so close to him when he wasn’t wearing pants.

With a quick rub of his hair, Deb was crossing the room and calling goodnight, Keith literally melting into the sheets the second she was gone.

A moment passed. “Keith?” Lance called quietly, tentatively.

“You can come out now,” Keith answered.

Lance emerged cautiously, the bundle of clothes held in front of his crotch. Keith snorted. “C’mere,” he said, holding out a hand for Lance.

“I don’t know, Keith. I’m thinking I’m gonna have to climb out the window or something.”

Keith laughed. “Yeah, you’re definitely not doing that. You’re the clumsiest person I’ve ever met. Just get in, no one else is gonna come in here.”

“See that’s a _prime_  example of wishful thinking,” Lance said, now pulling his clothes on haphazardly, continually glancing over at the door. He tossed Keith his boxers, which Keith grabbed and slipped on under the covers.

When Keith lifted the duvet, however, Lance didn’t protest, just crawled into the bed next to him, who promptly put the laptop onto Lance’s lap, pressed play, and curled into him.

* * *

 

“Come on!” Lance encouraged, grabbing Keith’s hand and giving it a good tug. Keith kept himself from pressing his heels into the ground, though just barely.

Lance had already managed to drag him _to_  the theme park, through the line, and now onto the actual roller coaster. Sometimes Keith really didn’t know why he was dating him.

Keith tried to stamp down on his fear as he slid into the seat, following Lance’s lead when he dragged the huge harness over himself and buckled it between his legs. An attendant came by, just barely pressing down on it before walking to the next person.

“I don’t think she really checked mine,” Keith said immediately, turning to look at Lance with wide eyes. Lance reached over and tugged on Keith’s harness.

“You’re fine,” he promised.

“You don’t work here!” Keith protested.

“No, but I’ve ridden this roller coaster fifty million times,” he said. And then, leaning forward a bit so he could get a better look at Keith. “Don’t be scared.”

“I’m not,” Keith lied blatantly, turning away from Lance with a huff and glaring at the seat in front of him. He found he couldn’t pay attention to the brief announcement being made, something about keeping their hands and feet inside the roller coaster at all times, as if Keith would ever dare let go of the damn thing.

And then, suddenly, the roller coaster was moving. Not fast yet, but it was pulling out of the little station and immediately climbing a hill, gravity pulling on Keith, pushing him down against the back of his seat. All he could see was the roller coaster’s track, going up and up and up, and fear gripped him so tightly and suddenly that he could hardly breathe. He looked over at Lance, frantic, and Lance’s expression softened as he reached over and grabbed Keith’s hand, which was a feat considering how tightly he’d been holding the handle on the harness.

“Hey, I promise we’re going to be okay,” Lance said.

“Okay,” Keith muttered. And then, attempting a joke, “But if we die, I love you.”

Lance laughed, his fingers squeezing Keith’s almost absent mindedly, and he looked over at him with the gooiest expression. “I love you too.”

A pause.

“You gonna put your hands up?”

“ _No_ ,” Keith said vehemently, just as they came to the peak of the roller coaster. Everything inside him wound up tight, tense and clenched and preparing for death, probably.

Lance started screaming in delight a split second before they dropped. Keith, on the other hand, was completely silent, holding Lance’s hand hostage in a death grip as they hurtled straight towards the ground, his hair whipping around his face and tears streaming from the corners of his eyes due to the wind.

Keith was pretty sure he’d left his stomach somewhere at the top of the hill, but when they came to the bottom of it and swooped back up he the jump in his stomach, like when you drive down a hill too fast, and he laughed without helping it. And then he was laughing for the rest of the ride, giggling and gasping as they careened sideways around fast turns and whipped up and down over tiny hills.

By the time it was over, Keith felt elated, a smile plastered on his face and his hair an absolute mess around his head. He was still wracked with leftover giggles, his feet kicking where they dangled as they pulled back into the station, the floor rising back up underneath them.

Lance was grinning so big it had to hurt. “I told you you’d like it,” he said happily, squeezing Keith’s hand again. He’d almost forgotten Lance was holding it.

“We should go again,” Keith said immediately.

“There’s like seven other roller coasters here,” Lance said. “We should ride the others first.”

Keith found himself nodding before Lance could even get the entire sentence out, too excited at the prospect of riding other roller coasters, possibly more exciting than this one. They only stopped to get in line for water bottles and give Keith a chance to take out his wishlist, which he flattened against Lance’s back as he clicked a pen.

He crossed out ‘ _Ride a roller coaster!!!!_ ’ written in Lance’s familiar handwriting, taking a moment to glance at all the other things he’d written and crossed out recently, too.

_Graduate._

_Tell Lance I love him._

_-Go to prom!!!- -No.- YES!!!_

_Wear a suit._

_Dancey dance with Lancey Lance ;))) <333_

He couldn’t help smiling. Practically half the things on his list were written by Lance now, seeing as Lance continually snatched it and added ideas of his own wishes that he thought Keith needed to do. His most recent addition was ‘get the wishlist laminated’ because he’d developed the sudden fear that Keith would end up accidentally getting it wet, despite never having done so in his many years toting it around.

“You done back there?” Lance joked, turning to look over his shoulder at Keith.

“Yeah,” he said, folding his list back up and slipping it into his pocket. Lance reached back immediately and pulled Keith up and to his side, the two of them inching forward slowly in line. It wasn’t only the lines for the rides that were atrocious, but even the lines for things like food and bathrooms. Keith would wonder how anyone could stand amusement parks if he weren’t currently itching out of his skin with the desire to plop himself on another ride.

“Hey, wait,” Lance said suddenly, his fingers sneaking all too familiarly into Keith’s front pocket. “I thought of another one.”

Keith snorted. “If you keep it up I’m gonna have to staple a second piece of paper to that.”

Lance gasped, eyes alight with excitement. “ _You totally should_.”

Already rolling his eyes, Keith just elbowed him, letting Lance spin him around as he began to write against his back, now. When he finished, he clicked the pen decisively and folded the paper up, slipping it back into Keith’s pocket as he hugged him from behind.

“What’d you write?” Keith asked, already knowing Lance’s answer.

“You’ll have to wait and see,” he sang, chin planted firmly on Keith’s shoulder. Keith was just glad he was facing away from Lance, who thankfully couldn’t see how stupidly affectionate he looked. He wrapped his arms around Lance’s own, pulling him forward another step or two in line before coming to a stop and leaning into him instead.

He didn’t mind Lance not telling him what he’d written. He’d probably end up adding more before Keith even got the chance to see this one, ones that’d make Keith laugh when he happened to spot them before falling asleep or ones that were oddly endearing, obviously added with love and careful thought.

For now though, Keith just tucked his pen behind his ear as he leaned his head back against Lance’s shoulder. He kept it there an embarrassing amount of the time, these days, earning him a lot of laughter and ridicule from his friends, each of whom thought he was ridiculous, actually keeping a pen behind his ear. He was just being time-conscientious, he always argued.

After all, he never really knew when Lance was going to decide it was time to add a new wish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) can u tell i'm in love with roller coasters  
> 2) THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING!!!! i really hoped you enjoyed the story as much as i enjoyed writing it <33  
> 3) i'm really bad at goodbyes so don't let this be a goodbye!!! talk to me on my twitter (@jacecares) or tumblr (@jilliancares), i'll love you forever!!
> 
> <333


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